


Three Syllables

by XFilesinAMajor



Series: GLOW [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Glass Shard Beach (Gravity Falls)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 67,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XFilesinAMajor/pseuds/XFilesinAMajor
Summary: This picks up a few months after Fireflies and Auto Theft leaves off. Dipper and Mabel might be back in California, but Teagan and her family are adjusting to being full-time residents of Gravity Falls. This means dealing with normal things (work, school, relationships) and less normal things (like the resident ghost in their house, and Teagan's continued luminescence).  And Stan, of course. There's a lot of dealing with Stan.
Relationships: Stan Pines & Original Character(s)
Series: GLOW [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574239
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	1. Me.

You know the thing that make summer romances so incredible? It’s that after a few beautiful months the colder weather rolls in, school starts up, and everyone goes back to their normal, decidedly unromantic lives. The perfection of summer romance only exists because it doesn’t have to _last_.

I mean, look at _Grease_ , that weird musical mess of pop culture. Summer days and summer nights were epic, but then they got around to high school and realized they had nothing in common unless they wanted to start dressing in black leather or whatever the hell that ending was about.

Having watched the movie as a teenager—not to mention being a grown-ass woman with teens of her own—you’d think I’d have known better than to pack up all my shit and move it across the country on a whim. To be fair, I hadn’t done that entirely in the name of romance, but it had still made things with my boyfriend a heck of a lot more complicated.

For example. When neither of you are actively working and the places you’re renting are right next door to each other, having him sleep over five nights out of the week was fantastic. When you were living in a rickety haunted house, hadn’t even finished unpacking half your stuff from the move yet, and had to get your kids and yourself out the door by eight a.m., it was more like a giant pain in the ass.

“Damn it, Stan, I said get _up_!” I shook his shoulder harder than I had a minute ago. He grunted. “I thought old people automatically woke up at the crack of dawn!”

“Yeah, well, how many of them don’t get fed till eight o’clock?” He demanded. A yawn obscured the last few words, meaning I only knew what he was saying because I knew his life. “Or stay up till almost midnight because _someone_ was paranoid the kids would hear her enjoying herself a little too much?”

Stupid silver fox appeal. Next time I was going for a man my own age. “If I can hear _them_ , they can hear _us_ ,” I scowled at him. “And I don’t have time for this conversation. We’re going to be late.”

“ _You’re_ going to be late,” he countered me amiably, earning himself a glare. “If you owned your own business like me, you wouldn’t have to worry about being on time.” He underscored this point by stretching out lazily in bed.

“You don’t own the place anymore,” I informed him, crossing my arms over my chest. “You retired, and then retired from _being_ retired. The fact that you even get paid I attribute _purely_ to kindness on Soos’ part.” That wasn’t entirely fair, and I knew it—but he _knew_ I knew it, so he was probably smart enough not to take offense right now.

“Someone’s catty today,” Stan observed with a wink that, under better circumstances, I might have found very charming. “What happened? You seemed happy enough when you fell asleep.”

I narrowed my eyes into a death stare. It must not have been effective, because he laughed. The sound mellowed my mood slightly, and I sighed. “Are you getting up, or do I have to trust you to lock up on your way out—whenever _that_ is?”

“You _do_ trust me,” he reminded me, some of the irritating levity slipping out of his voice to be replaced by affection. “I won’t screw that up.”

That mellowed me a little more, and I leaned over and kissed him. “I know.”

“See you tonight?” he asked as I started for the bedroom door.

“No,” I said with slight disappointment. “Ugh, Dave has a tennis match at five. I have _no_ idea what time we’ll be home.”

“Alright, guess I’m having brown meat for dinner!”

I stuck out my tongue in revulsion. “Why would you tell me that? Of _all_ the things I have no desire to know about bachelor life…”

Stan raised his eyebrows. “Thought you were running late?”

“Yes,” I agreed, turning back to the door. As if on cue, I heard a shout of _Mom_ from downstairs. “I’ll see you tonight. I mean, tomorrow. Text me!”

“You mean that teenager technology?” he called as I ran down the stairs.

“Yes!” I shouted over my shoulder. “You operated a machine that opened a portal between worlds. You can handle a damn smart phone!”

He said something else, but I missed it because I was grabbing my purse and slipping my feet into flats. I missed the days of sneakers and cutoffs, but at least it wasn’t snowing yet—this house didn’t have a garage. Dave was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror one last time before we left, but Nicky was already halfway out the door with his backpack over one shoulder. “We’re gonna be _late_ ,” he reminded me pointedly.

“And for once it’s not your fault, so you’re going to rub it in?” Dave sniffed, breezing past him to grab his own bag.

“It’s _never_ my fault,” shot back Nicky angrily. “ _You’re_ the one checking your hair and make-up until the last minute like a _girl_.”

“At least I don’t smell like ass,” Dave retorted before I even had a chance to scold his brother. Apparently he didn’t need me fighting his battles for him. That was almost enough to make me overlook his use of the word _ass_.

I sighed loudly and held the door for them both. “Stop fighting, get in the car, or we really _will_ be late. Dave, don’t swear and don’t be rude. Nicky, you are not allowed to criticize your brother for his style.”

They both rolled their eyes at me, momentarily a united front against Mom. It was, after all, _my_ fault that school started before eight in the morning. Halfway to the high school I remembered that I hadn’t seen Dave eat anything, and grabbed a protein bar from the glovebox to force on him. I knew Nicky had eaten, because before I’d gone up to check on Stan I’d seen the empty bowl of cereal surrounded by a pool of spilled milk on the counter. Despite all this evidence of being awake, he slumped over in the backseat and dozed as we dropped Dave off outside the high school. I had to poke him when we got to the middle school before he yawned, blinked, and hopped out.

Onward to my own job. I glanced at the clock in my car, doing the mental math required to figure out what time it _really_ was because that thing hadn’t been right in four years. Okay…five minutes to get to Barrels & Crates. That was doable. Barely, but it was doable.

I fretted the entire drive, but got parked and in the front door before the clock in the lobby hit 8:02. That was close enough, since my boss wasn’t standing right there waiting and I didn’t have a punch card to tattle on me. I heard footsteps coming and practically dived into the seat behind my desk, but it was just Eileen. She smiled and nodded at me, but proceeded on to the warehouse without pausing to chat. I liked Eileen.

I realized I hadn’t turned on my desk light yet, and stood up to correct that. No sunlight coming in the window today, either; if anything, the dark clouds were promising buckets of rain this evening. I tried to remember whether Dave’s game tonight was scheduled for someplace that had indoor courts. I’d searched it up yesterday to see how far the drive was (only forty minutes) but couldn’t remember anything else about the place. If it was only outdoors, there was a chance it would get cancelled if it was truly pouring. The potential of a quiet evening at home sounded pretty amazing, but I wasn’t counting on it.

Teenagers were exhausting. I was happy—really, genuinely happy—that they were adjusting so well to their new home. Nicky was struggling a bit with the change in routine, but he had already found some new gaming friends and seemed to enjoy a few of his classes. Dave was honestly doing better than he’d ever done back in Michigan. In the weeks before school even started, he’d managed to acquire a very sweet boyfriend and start playing guitar with a teenage metal band, and he’d managed to keep both those going so far while adding school and tennis.

But I still had to get them up and ready for school, _to_ school, hope they didn’t burn the house down in the hours between when the bus dropped them off and I left work, and then drive them to various friends’ or activities. Oh, and feed them. How had I managed it all _before_ the move? Why did it seem so much harder now?

Well, I’d liked my job, to start with. Not that sitting behind the reception desk for a barrel manufacturer all day was bad, per se. In fact, if you wanted to get technical it was a lot easier than being a grade school secretary. But it certainly wasn’t as fulfilling, it didn’t go by quickly, and I wasn’t comfortable enough with my role or my coworkers to really relax at all.

And then there was my desire for something resembling a social life, which honestly hadn’t been a huge concern in the years before our move. Two years ago, my husband had unexpectedly dropped dead while watching TV. We later learned it was an aortic dissection, trigged by a preexisting heart condition no one had known he had. What it meant was that I was abruptly parenting a grieving ten- and thirteen-year-old on my own. The only social interactions I had were with them, and with people trying awkwardly to comfort me. I shut myself off completely for a year, just focusing on my grief and my job and my remaining family.

Eventually I came out of it, only to find that I had no idea how to reconnect with the people I’d shut out. My oldest son was, I suspected, being bullied at school—not that he’d talk about it. My youngest was only too ready to talk about the kids that picked on _him_ —for being too smart, too geeky, too fatherless. How could I leave them alone all evening to go attempt some awkward adult social interaction? I made a few attempts to see old friends, and I chatted with the parents of my sons’ friends at times. I could be pleasant. I could be interested. I could even be fun, once in a while. But I was playing it safe, holding all my cards so close to my chest even _I_ forgot what my hand looked like.

Then I booked a cabin out in eastern Oregon for the first three weeks of summer, and I’d invited the family in the cabin next to ours’ over for dinner, and the dealer gave me a whole bunch of new cards and I started tipping my hand and, well, here we were four months later. Living in Gravity Falls.

And attempting to date Stanley Pines. I’d done pretty well at it, at…well, no, not at first. At _first_ I’d been awkward and terrified and burning with two years’ worth of sexual repression. _After_ that—that part I’d been good at. The romance part. The summer part. The middle part. Now we were into this “I still like you but real life keeps getting in the way” part that I didn’t feel I was doing remotely well at.

It was a pity, if I was going to date a man twenty years my senior, that I couldn’t have chosen some respectable, rich retiree to hook up with. Stan was none of those things. He was a grumpy, greedy old grifter, possibly even more emotionally damaged than me. But he had a—“a heart of gold” sounds far too trite and would be a lie, anyway. But he had a _heart_. He was funny, and charming, and I’d seen how loyal he could be to the people who mattered to him. The fact that I seemed to _be_ one of those people was daunting, sometimes.

That was why I kept trying, even though some days the idea of having an extra person who needed my time and energy was enough to make me want to crawl under a rug. Because Stan hadn’t just been there for the fun parts over the summer, he’d been there for the ugly, the boring, the scary. He’d seen me first thing in the morning and was still here, and he’d held my hand and calmed me down at a time when everyone else was scared to touch me. He’d told me about his past and included me in activities with his family, and he wasn’t the type of man to let his guard down too easily. So I wasn’t going to shut myself off again just because things weren’t perfect right now.

Besides, the sex was really good.

Eileen came by again, presumably on the way back to her desk. “They’ve got donuts out there,” she told me as she passed.

Nice. “Is there any coffee?” Stan made the best coffee, but I’d make do with whatever I could get. I’d made myself a cup before I left the house, but I could use another dose of caffeine at this point. We _had_ stayed up too late last night, I couldn’t argue about that.

“Only decaf,” Eileen answered, and I groaned aloud. She smiled sympathetically. “Give it a few minutes, I’m sure someone will start up a new pot.”

“By the time they do, the donuts will be all picked over,” I sighed.

“Go grab one right now,” she told me kindly. “I can man the fort for thirty seconds.”

Not that my hips _needed_ a donut, but that offer had just seriously improved my mood. “You rock,” I told her, popping up out of my seat like a spring. “I love you!”

Eileen laughed and shook her head. “Save it for Stan!”

One of the dubious perks of my move to Gravity Falls was that, since the whole town knew Stan, the whole town knew me as his girlfriend. And they weren’t subtle about it. I’d had people who were practically strangers give me a knowing wink when they saw me in his company. This throwaway from Eileen was pretty mild, honestly.

I shared a quick grin with her and took off down the hall in search of donuts and coffee.

*

Saying “I love you” is a funny thing. It was easy to throw out to a coworker when I was feeling grateful, because we both knew I didn’t really _love_ her. It was easy, too, to say it to my sons every night, because we all knew already that I _did_ love them. I could tell me parents I loved them. I could say it to Stan’s El Diablo, no problem.

But the guy I’d been sleeping with for four months? That was a little more complicated, and despite what Eileen seemed to think it was _not_ something I said often to him. Or, um. At all. It was delicate and terrifying and I was really hoping he’d be the one to take that plunge first. That might mean I was waiting around a long time, but that was something I could live with. If one of us said it, that opened up all sorts of new possibilities and obligations. I didn’t need that kind of pressure just yet. Even if I was pretty sure I _did_ love him.

It didn’t help that we’d never been on what most people would consider an actual _date_. Since we’d met because we were summertime neighbors and our kids (well, _my_ kids—his niece and nephew) were hanging out, we’d basically skipped over the _fancy dinners out_ part and went straight to the _falling asleep together in front of the tv_ part. Then again, maybe that was by design; Stan did _not_ like spending money. I think once he realized he could get in my pants without spending a dime, my fate was sealed.

Then again, I wasn’t a big fan of fancy restaurants anyway. Give me a boat ride to a tiny, secluded island or an illegal midnight walk through a history museum any day. Maybe, as Stan’s niece Mabel insisted, we really were made for each other.

Dave left for his game at 4:00, but I didn’t get off work until five. He’d insisted that he didn’t mind staying after school so that he’d be there to catch the bus, pointing out that a lot of his teammates were doing the same thing. That left Nicky home alone with the ghost for a few hours, but since he was the reason we still _had_ a ghost in the house, I wasn’t too worried about that. Our resident ghost expert (Stan’s brother) had informed us when we moved in that the best way to deal with what he called a “category one” ghost was to ignore it. Which was exactly what Nicky had _not_ done. The rest of us had tried, but my youngest had decided having a deceased best friend around the house was _awesome_ , and chatted with it daily.

So here we were a month later, sharing our home with Horace. As near as I could tell, he’d been about ten when he died, and desperately wanted attention. Some days for whatever reason he didn’t seem to manifest, but other days it was just like having a third kid in the house. He’d sit there and watch tv, or drift through Dave’s bedroom door to listen to him play guitar, or join us at the dining room table to monopolize the conversation while the rest of us tried to eat. It wasn’t that I disliked him, per se. He was willing to play tabletop games with Nicky and listen to him go on and on about whatever anime he was currently obsessed with, so he certainly had his uses. And he didn’t eat or take showers.

He did tend to drift through walls without any concept of what people might be doing on the other side, though. Dave had threatened to exorcise him once after a very ill-timed ghostly visit that resulted in me having to have a talk about puberty, hormones, and the importance of alone time. With a ghost.

I mean, really. Was it any _wonder_ I didn’t have much energy left over for Stan? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Gravity Falls was _full_ of weird shit like that. Which was, to be fair, why I’d stayed here. I was part of that weird shit.

Driving home to pick up Nicky, I thought about that, as I often did on the rare occasions my favorite radio station wasn’t playing anything good. Glowing in the dark was useful and all (at least, it was when you lived in a town that accepted it—when I was back in Michigan arranging the sale of our old house, it had meant I couldn’t go _anywhere_ dark). But if I’d known I was going to get an unrequested superpower, I would have chosen something that would come in handy more often then “gee I wish I had a flashlight right now.” Teleportation, for example. The ability to fly, or stop time, or even just run really fast without getting winded or tripping myself. Heck, given my impressive tendency for hurting myself, being able to walk along like a normal person without tripping or banging my elbow or swallowing a bug would _be_ a superpower.

But it was what it was. I was Teagan Kettle, formerly from upstate Michigan, presently of Gravity Falls, mother of David and Nicholas. I worked in a barrel factory, couldn’t sing to save my life but could injure myself like a pro, and glowed in the dark. I also liked mystery novels, glasses of rum, walks in nature, and Stan Pines.

Nicky and Horace were playing video games together when I got home. I’d noticed last week how well this seemed to suit both of them—Horace because someone was playing something with him, and Nicky because Horace wasn’t quite corporeal enough to win any of the games. He could press the buttons enough to put up a fight, but only if the controller was sitting on the floor and even then he wasn’t very good. Though I guess if you thought about it, being able to play video games at _all_ when you’d been dead over a hundred years was a pretty great accomplishment.

I had time to pee, change out of my hated professional clothes into ripped jeans and a t-shirt, and drag my son away from his fun. Then it was back out the door and into the car. Dave had to be there for the entire game, but his personal match wasn’t scheduled until halfway through. There was no telling exactly how long it would take to get to him, but I’d be damned before I’d drive all the way out there and _miss_ it.

Nicky was a smart kid, and we’d been through this several times by now, so he brought his homework and Gameboy along for the trip. By the time we arrived at the courts (wet, but not currently raining) to watch Dave, he had the bulk of his homework done. He finished the remainder before Dave’s match, and spent the rest of the time playing games and sending texts. I’d brought along a book to entertain myself, which was good because after watching Dave squeak out a narrow win the time went very slowly. He had his doubles match later on, or I would have stolen him away and gotten home in time to make a real dinner. Sometimes I wondered whether he’d even care if I wasn’t here, but knew in my heart the answer was yes.

It was dark out when we headed back toward town. The light coming off my skin gave the car an eerie green hue, but it also made it a lot easier to locate my phone inside my purse when I heard a text alert. Being a responsible parent, I passed it to Dave and asked him to tell me who it was. “It’s Stan,” he said, and after a pause added with more excitement, “‘Are you ever coming home, the pizza’s getting cold.’ There’s _pizza_?”

“Apparently,” I answered, realizing just how good that sounded. I was starving and exhausted and had been planning on letting everyone forage for their own dinner. This was a welcome surprise, but what on earth had possessed Stan? “Will you tell him we’ll be there in ten minutes? Tell him it’s you.” Not that Stan was in the habit of sending risqué text messages, but better safe than sorry.

“Mom says we’ll be home in ten minutes,” Dave said aloud as he typed. “And there better be a Hawaiian pizza or she’s dumping your ass.”

“Dave!” I exclaimed, but I was already laughing. “You did not really send that!”

“I totally did,” he answered. A quick glance showed me his very strained poker face. “Oh, he’s writing back!”

“Give me that!” I snatched for the phone.

Dave jerked it back, clucking his tongue at me in disapproval. “Texting while driving, Mom? Really?”

“Do you want to get us _killed_?” Nicky demanded from the back seat, evidently deciding this was too good to sit out.

“Right now? Kinda.” Both of them laughed.

“Oh, here we go!” Dave was reading from the phone again. “‘That doesn’t sound like your mom.’” Damn straight it didn’t. The day I ate a pizza with ham on it was the day I gave up on life. If Stan had really responded, that meant Dave had actually _sent_ that message. I’d been hoping he’d been joking about the whole thing…but it was still kind of funny. He was now tapping the phone against his chin thoughtfully, probably concocting a horrible response. “Hmm…” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tapping with his thumbs. “She’s on her period.”

My jaw dropped. “David Francis Kettle! You _better_ be joking! I _know_ you wouldn’t do that to someone who’s _friends with your boyfriend’s mom._ And who has _naked baby pictures of you_.”

Nicky went into a fit of giggles. Dave blushed but did not repent. I risked another brief glance at him. He was watching my phone screen in horrified fascination.

“What? Did he write back?” I demanded, raising an eyebrow. To tell the truth, I was still fairly amused by the whole thing. But I had to act offended, on principle.

Dave still didn’t say anything. I cocked my head to the side. He passed the phone back to me. I was now burning with curiosity, but I had to wait till we came to a stop sign before I could look. _No she’s not, knucklehead. I’d know better than you._

I laughed through the next three stop lights.

I was _still_ uttering quiet little intermittent hiccups of laughter when I parked in the driveway. Dave had gone quiet and very pink. Nicky had kept demanding to know what Stan had written, so I’d eventually passed him the phone. This had merited a very blank “I don’t get it,” but he’d stopped asking. Now that we were finally back, the promise of pizza overrode everything else. All three of us hurried up the steps to the front door, our backpacks, tennis gear, etc bumping against each other.

The smell hit us at once, and we unceremoniously dropped our things as we headed to the living room. Three pizza boxes were sitting on top of some of the unpacked boxes I’d left near the TV. The coffee table had plates, a two-liter and some cups, and a tumbler filled with dark alcohol. Stan was on the sofa, watching some sort of period drama on our TV. He heard us enter and arranged his face into an expression of perfect smugness.

I flopped down next to him without hesitation. “I think Dave lost his appetite after your last text. We’ll have to eat his pizza.”

“Great, I love Hawaiian.” He winked at me. “About time you got here.”

I yawned and stretched out on the sofa, resting my head sideways in his lap. “Just put the pizza in my mouth.”

“You know I’d have to get up to do that, right sweetie?” he chuckled.

I let my head fall to the side, closed my eyes, and pretended to snore. This was honestly very comfortable. If my stomach hadn’t been rumbling…

Reluctantly, I sat back up, forcing myself to my feet. “So what brought this on?” I asked, grabbing a plate from the table and following the boys to the food. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled, but I was _not_ expecting this. You didn’t have to get us pizza.”

He beat me to the boxes, helping himself to a slice of pepperoni and sausage. “Don’t worry about it. You can pay me back later.”

It’d be nice to think he was joking, but I rather doubted it. And even if I _was_ paying, coming home to hot pizza and a glass of rum was a good way to end the day. Wait, not just pizza. I stared at the contents of the box I’d just flipped open, practically drooling. _Veggie supreme_ pizza. The kind that I loved, but never actually bought for myself. I grabbed a slice, trying to keep all the cheese and toppings from sliding off as I lifted it to my mouth. Screw the plate, just get in my mouth!

I closed my eyes as I chewed, relishing the taste. I set the portion I hadn’t managed to cram in my mouth onto the plate, and loaded two more slices on top of it before retreating to the sofa. I was still chewing as I sat down, but took another giant bite anyway. I sat back, holding the plate in my lap, and sighed happily.

The boys had taken one look at what was on tv and both retreated to their rooms with their pizza. I snuggled against Stan’s side and shoved what remained of the slice into my mouth.

“So I got the right kind, huh?” I thought he looked amused, but he was also talking with his mouth full, making it hard to tell.

“Maybe I’m just really hungry.” I wiped my mouth off on the back of my hand.

“You missed a piece,” Stan told me. “I’ve never seen you look at food like that before.”

I leaned forward to grab my rum from the coffee table, downing it in two smooth gulps. “You have no idea how much I needed this.”

“I kinda thought you might,” he admitted. “So I figured, hey, make it happen.”

“You even knew my favorite pizza.” I looked up at him in wonder.

He looked faintly embarrassed. “It wasn’t hard to guess. I thought, you know, maybe I could give you a massage or something later.”

I paused with a second slice of pizza halfway to my mouth, and gave him a hard look. “That sounds amazing. But seriously. What’s going on?”

“What?” He spread his hands, one of which was still holding his plate. “You act like I never do anything nice.”

“You do _lots_ of nice things,” I tried to backpedal. Really, he did. It was just that most of them were spur-of-the-moment, rather than nice things he had to plan out. “I’m just…it’s so unexpected. And sweet.” I kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he grumbled. “I know you’ve been struggling. I…” He looked deeply uncomfortable. It was strangely endearing. “I don’t want to make it worse. So I tried to think what I could do to make it better.” He paused. I offered him an encouraging smile but also took another bite of pizza. “I wish you could just work at the Shack.”

That hurt slightly—not that he wanted me there, but the reminder that the reality of it wouldn’t work. I’d have loved to be a stock girl at the Mystery Shack. “Me too. But unless there’s a sudden business boom in the middle of the off season, you can’t afford another full time employee. And it would _have_ to be full time, unless I was also getting a substantial pay raise.”

Stan’s eyebrows pulled down slightly. “Soos’ll do whatever I tell him to.”

I leaned into his shoulder, resting my free hand on his leg. “I know you don’t want to exploit that. And you definitely don’t want to financially hurt your baby just to have me around a little more.” He sighed and didn’t refute me. I smiled and snuggled closer. “It’ll get easier again, don’t worry. Transitions always suck. The fact that you noticed and want to help means a lot, actually. Coming home to all this made my day.” I wrecked the sentimental moment with my inability to resist another bite of pizza. “Deep down, you’re a romantic sweetheart.” I winked. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“You’ve still got pizza on your face,” he told me.

I wiped at my mouth with the base of my palm. “Better?”

He looked skeptical. “It’s half a green pepper, how do you keep missing it?”

“Because you gave me couple shots worth of rum,” I answered, laughing. “And there is no way it’s _half_ a pepper.”

“So you’re just gonna leave it there?”

“Yes.” I bobbed my eyebrows up and down in a challenge, and took another bite. “If you want it gone, you’ll have to remove it yourself.”

He shook his head, but looked amused. “I’ll let you finish eating.”

“Very kind of you,” I said with my mouth full.

Stan returned his attention to his own slice. “So did he win?”

“Won his singles match, lost at doubles. That match went _forever_ , though.” Talking about my now-absent son reminded me of the drive home, and I nearly choked on my dinner as a bubble of laughter descended on me. “I can’t believe you texted that to him! I thought you wanted the kids’ goodwill.”

“I got him his favorite pizza. That’s enough goodwill for one night. Besides, he was telling lies about my girl. I can’t stand by and allow that sort of thing.” He paused, and grinned. “What’d he do?”

I snorted with amusement at the memory. “Passed me the phone without saying a _word_. Turned red. Looked out the window the rest of the way home.”

Stan cackled delightedly.

I wriggled happily against his side, making myself more comfortable. “So what are we watching here?”

“ _Mirth and Matrimony._ ”

“Oh, I watched this _years_ ago! I loved it.”

“Don’t spoil it.”

“I would never.”

I meant that last part. First, I had no interest in talking through the movie because I was busy devouring half a pizza (I was going to have to exercise a _lot_ tomorrow). Second, listening to Stan’s reactions to movies were half the reason to watch with him. He got so into it, it was priceless. And third, the alcohol, full stomach, and long day were catching up to me. Drowsing against the warm muscles in his shoulder was very enticing. Even if I still had half a green pepper on my face.

I didn’t quite fall asleep, which meant I was able to shake myself awake and move the dishes to the kitchen when the movie ended. “Do you have anything you need to get back for?” I asked Stan, who was still busy trying to pretend the end of the movie hadn’t made him cry.

“Course not,” he snorted, looking at me like I was crazy to even suggest it.

“Good.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the steps. “You still owe me a back rub.”

He’d been dating me four months; he knew I wasn’t actually talking about a back rub…though one of those wouldn’t be bad, either. But he had this tiny, secretive, approving smile that I got to see every time I used the phrase. And it made me crazy in the best way.

Still, I was a responsible adult. I turned off the lights downstairs and locked the doors. I went all the way upstairs to rap lightly on Dave’s bedroom door. He was lying on his bed, talking on his phone, now-empty plate lying on his bedside table. I waved to him and mouthed “Love you,” waiting for his answering smile and wave before shutting the door. I peeked into Nicky’s room next. He was passed out under his covers, bedside lamp still on and book lying near his outstretched arm. Another book was open at the foot of the bed, and an invisible hand turned the page while I watched. “Night, Horace,” I said against my better judgement.

“Night, Teagan,” the empty air whispered back.

Stan was waiting for me in the hallway. “You sure that’s good for him?” he asked, nodding toward the door as I shut it. “Being buddies with a ghost?”

I shrugged. “As long as the ghost isn’t his _only_ friend, I think it’s probably okay. Ford didn’t seem too concerned about him.”

“Yeah, let’s trust the guy who got tricked into being friends with a demon,” he grumbled.

I started back down to the second story, where my own bedroom was. “How is he, by the way? Did you guys talk today?”

“Only for a minute. He was going out with friends, if you can believe it.”

“Sure I can believe it. He probably meets a lot of other nerds at his job.”

He smiled. “Yeah, they’re probably sitting around playing board games.”

“Remind me again how board games are lame but poker is awesome?”

“You can’t make _money_ playing board games. Sheesh, Teegs, haven’t I taught you anything?”

I paused with my back against the frame of my bedroom door, grinning up at him. “So you’d play, say…Chutes and Ladders?...if there was money riding on it?”

He stepped in close to me, resting his hands on my waist. “Can I cheat at it?”

I put my arms up around his neck. “I don’t think they’ve invented a game you _can’t_ cheat at.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He kissed me, warm and deep. His coarse, perpetual five o’clock shadow scratched against me just before our lips met, and once they’d parted against each other his glasses bumped my cheek. Both were welcome and familiar sensations, an indispensable part of the experience. He tasted like tomato and fennel, remnant from dinner. Oh no, did that mean I tasted like green peppers, olives, mushrooms, and onions? It was amazing that he was even kissing me right now, but when I started to pull back he didn’t seem eager to stop. Okay then. Good.

I felt like I had stars in my eyes when I finally pulled away. I stared up at Stan for a minute, and he smiled at me. Even after spending the whole summer doing this sort of thing, it still made me blush when he looked at me like that. I cleared my throat, and glanced over my shoulder toward the spare bedroom and bathroom. “I should really brush my teeth.”

“Yeah, okay,” he shrugged, releasing me. We both had brushes in this bathroom, and I always found brushing my teeth in front of him strangely intimate. One of those things that _should_ come a lot easier than sleeping with someone, yet doesn’t. Even _literally_ sleeping with him had come easier; I’d passed out on him watching tv many times before I’d let him watch me gargle with mouthwash. But here we were, and at least I wasn’t going to taste like onions after this.

And feeling vulnerable wasn’t all bad. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Stan, leaning over the sink in his boxers and undershirt, spit a large blob of foam. A warm balloon of affection inflated inside me. Rude, crooked, cheap old charlatan. Unable to contain it, I wrapped my arms around him from behind, squeezing him in a tight one-way hug.

“What was that for?” he asked before slurping water from his cupped hand.

I let him go and spit out my own toothpaste. “Just because,” I smiled, and rinsing my mouth out. “One of these days, I’m going to get you to take your dentures out at bedtime, you know.”

“What are you talking about, I don’t wear _dentures_ ,” he bluffed confidently.

I kissed him on his cheek, nuzzling against his neck with my nose. “If you say so.”

We went back into the bedroom, and I shut and locked the door. That was the nice thing about having teenagers—they didn’t invite themselves into your room in the middle of the night or need to knock for anything short of an emergency. Of course, a locked door wasn’t going to stop Horace if he started feeling lonely, but so far we hadn’t had any issues. I shed my day clothes, slipping an oversized t-shirt over my head in their place.

As usual, Stan beat me under the covers. I snuggled up close so that my body pressed against his arm. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told him softly.

“Course you are,” he told me, smiling slightly. He shifted his arm so that it went around my back instead, pulling me against him. I made a tiny sound of assent in the back of my throat, but he’d barely even kissed me before he stopped. “I promised you a massage!”

I pulled him closer again. “I’m letting you off the hook.”

“Oh. Well. You wanna give _me_ one, then? Carrying those pizzas was hard work.”

I started to laugh. “You have given me _boxing_ lessons. You’ve literally picked me up and thrown me. But two pizzas is too much for you?”

He rolled over and sighed tragically. “I’m an old man, everything hurts. You’ll understand some day.”

I growled at him. He laughed.

“Fine,” I snapped out, my repressed amusement sharpening my words to fine points. “Take off your shirt. But I think when I’m done, I’ll take you up on your offer after all.”

He was facing into the bed at that point, so it was hard to be sure, but I suspected he looked very pleased with himself right then. Damn it, he’d just conned me, hadn’t me. (Yes, Teagan, having a boyfriend who cons you _into_ getting a back massage is just the worst thing ever.)

Not that I really minded working out some of the tension he carried in his upper back. His shoulders were broad, hairy, scarred, and well-muscled; I loved having a chance to touch them or watch them move. The only hard part was making sure I stayed on-task instead of descending into temptation. Stan’s shoulders plus massage oil plus the sounds he tended to make when I hit the right spot…not a good mix for me in terms of self-control.

To distract myself, I recounted some of the details of my day while I dug my thumbs into the base of his neck. It hadn’t been terribly exciting—mostly sitting behind a desk greeting visitors and vendors and answering phone calls. I’d gotten a little exercise on my lunch break and felt like I had correctly directed all incoming calls. Round of applause for Teagan, big whoop-de-doo. That took me about thirty seconds to share, so I spent the ten minutes that followed telling him about the mystery novel I was currently reading.

I was no massage expert, but eventually I felt like I’d done an adequate job. Last time I’d done this he’d fallen asleep, but he seemed really determined to return the favor this time. It was almost enough to make me suspicious. Still, I obligingly pulled my nightshirt off, rolled onto my stomach, and closed my eyes. It was hard not to get excited when I could he feel him shifting his position so that he was behind me, even if I knew his intentions were totally—

I got hit by a steam roller. Most of the air went out of me, and the muscles in my lower back screamed in protest. The steam roller kept moving up, setting nerves all around my spine on fire. “Ow,” I managed to say, recovering the power of speech. “ _Ow!_ ”

The steam roller paused between my shoulder blades, and the pressure lessened. “Too much for you?”

I shrugged him off—thankfully he took the hint—and rolled onto my back so I could look at him. “Explain to me why I thought the boxer who probably hasn’t done this in twenty years was a good person to give me a back massage?” I rolled my shoulders one at a time and drew in a deep breath. “ _Way_ too much.”

He looked so put out I had to sit up and hug him. “You’re strong,” I reminded him, brushing my lips against his jaw. “But my muscles disapprove of brute force.” I moved back slightly and pulled him into a nice topless kiss that ended with him flat on top of me. “I love that you’re trying.” And now that I had him like this, most of me just wanted to dispense with the underwear and keep him where he was. But I suspected this was important to his ego, so I kept my legs together for the time being. “Give it another shot.”

He did, and the result was much better. He pushed his thumb gently against a knotted muscle, and I groaned faintly. “A little harder?” Okay, now _this_ was incredible. I carried a lot of tension around between my shoulders, too, and right now it was getting brutally decimated. Deep tissue massage was good, within reason. I melted into the mattress.

“Who do you think I was giving backrubs to twenty years ago?” he asked once he’d figured out I wasn’t going to complain again.

I tried to shrug; the motion didn’t go very far, since his hands were on my shoulders now, but I was sure he felt it. “I’ve seen pictures of you from back then. There’s no way there wasn’t someone.”

Stan actually stopped massaging me. “Who the heck was showing you pictures from twenty years ago? I didn’t even have _friends_ back then.” He paused, realizing what he’d said. “I mean, uh…”

I made a small snort of laughter into the pillow. “I know. You were busy trying to restart a doomsday device and get your brother back, while turning the Shack into someplace that could make money. But there were still pictures, and Mabel found them.”

“Course she did,” he growled, attacking my neck muscles. I groaned again. This might be better than sex. I couldn’t _think_ the last time I’d had anyone work on my back like this.

“Of course she did,” I agreed. “And you were hot.”

“Was?” He sounded offended, but I knew him well enough to read the humor in his voice.

I grinned. “Well. Even more so.” His hands were so warm on my shoulders. I sighed deeply. “How was business today?”

“Eh, not bad. Couple of cheapskates didn’t buy a damn thing, but Soos has made some pretty fun new exhibits. Who knew that jar of industrial paste would go so far.” He laughed to himself, and went on to describe the monstrosities to me. Part of me was laughing along with him and wondering how many of the ridiculous mythical creatures displayed at the Shack were actually akin to something real that just hadn’t been discovered yet, like the fish-squirrels we’d come across last June. The other part of me was so relaxed I was drooling into my pillow.

“Is that enough? This is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Stan remarked after a minute or two of near silence (my occasional groans didn’t count as conversation).

I rolled my neck from side to side and flipped over. “Yeah, I have no idea what the trick is to not having your hands cramp up.”

“I meant this.” He moved my hand to the front of his boxers. Oh. Yes. That was definitely hard. “You ever listen to yourself?”

An embarrassed smirk tugged at my lips. Yes, the groans I’d been making just now had a certain similarity to the ones I made at other times. Also, I was conveniently topless, in bed, and essentially underneath him. I moved my hand slowly along the spot he’d put it, my amusement and relaxing fading away. My hips rolled upward, and I let my knees fall apart. This had been a surprisingly wonderful conclusion to my day. Now I wanted to end it the right way.

I’ll never quite know why chemistry works the way it does. In my life I’d met plenty of men who were, in theory, very attractive, and ones I had genuinely liked and respected as people. But whatever created that spark that made you find someone utterly irresistible, it hadn’t been there with them. That magical moment when you’ll be doing something that might be completely innocent, yet just a look or a touch will set off a reaction inside you that you can’t contain. The force that feels like gravity or magnetism pulling you physically toward each other until you’re kissing with an unrivaled sense of urgency. What causes _that_?

Conventionally, I suppose, Stan wasn’t that attractive at this point in his life. He was always unshaven, his posture was terrible, his ears and nose were on the large side, he had glasses and a hearing aid and more than a few extra pounds. I was slightly younger and in better shape, with wide green eyes and a curvy figure, but I’d never thought of myself as exactly _pretty_ , either. And yet chemistry turned us both into the most desirable creatures on earth.

Not that I was thinking about the science of sexual chemistry right then. I was thinking about getting Stan as deep inside me as quickly as possible. Luckily, we were on the same wavelength. I managed to wiggle out of my panties while kissing him, and he paused only long enough to shove his boxers down his legs. That was all it took for me to welcome him inside and oh _man_ , I took it back earlier about a massage being better than sex. Nothing in the world was better than this.

I loved the way he moved not just inside me, but all over. The way his body fit against mine, the way his muscles tensed in different places, the way his hands gripped me and his chest rubbed against mine, the way he kissed and tasted, all of it. Conscious of the fact that Dave was still potentially awake above us, I tried to bury my sounds of approval in the front of Stan’s shoulder. As long as I wasn’t louder than I’d been during the actual backrub. I could manage that.

I missed the summer days when all the kids would be other places and I didn’t have to hold myself back; I had it on good authority that Stan liked seeing me really let the inhibitions go. On the other hand, there was something to be said for the excitement of stolen, furtive moments like this one. The intensity rapidly became overwhelming, and we both came quickly. That didn’t make it any less satisfying. He collapsed on top of me afterward, and I let my hands drift in little circles through the gray hair on his shoulders, pausing to stroke the scar on his back. His weight was a little much for me to tolerate indefinitely, but I wanted to keep him there as long as possible. For whatever reason, I loved having him relax against me like this.

I glanced over at the alarm clock on my bedside table. Later than I’d like, but not much worse than yesterday when it came down to it. And oh, it had been worth it. Nights like tonight were the reason I kept forcing myself through the exhaustion of the day. My boys had both finished their homework; I’d been there to support Dave when he won his match; we’d laughed a lot together on the ride home; I’d gotten my favorite food for dinner without having to cook; and I got to fall asleep, sexually fulfilled, next to a man who noticed when I was stressed and did his best to fix it.

Really, asking for anything more than that would just be greedy.

*

Late September moved into early October. Eileen and I now chatted about books from time to time, and I’d found some fun exercises to do without leaving my post at the front desk. I was enjoying decorating the house for Halloween, and starting to feel a little more comfortable with my new schedule.

Dave had a fight with the lead guitarist in his band, left the group, then made up and rejoined a week later. Homecoming had come and gone and he and Thompson were still, incredibly, going strong. He’d spent the Saturday after it at the mall with Grenda and Candy, two friends from summer who (possibly because they were a grade below him) he rarely got to see at school.

Nicky had found a DD&MD group through school, and had been hard at work creating a new character. He was trying to find a way to convince them to hold the weekly game night at our house, so that Horace could join in—but he was also starting to drop the names of other friends with increasing frequency. I’d attended the fall conferences at his school, and heard from most of his teachers that he was quiet but an excellent student.

Horace was sneakily trying to integrate himself into the family, sometimes joining us to watch tv after dinner or floating into the kitchen during breakfast. He’d caught me while I was having coffee alone one morning, and I’d been forced to hear a good chunk of his life story. The most annoying part was that it was kind of _working_. I was getting fond of the kid.

Stan…well, Stan was lonely. I saw now why Ford had been reluctant to accept his dream job out east until he knew I was staying in town. Having a twin brother had meant that, as a kid, Stan had never needed to learn how to make friends. He’d had a best friend built in, and from what he’d told me they had always felt as though it was the Pines vs the world. Then that had all been yanked away from him. Instead of college, he’d been trying to make a living for himself—and being a conman didn’t lead to many long term friendships. He’d made a few during his time in prison, I gathered, but going deep into debt and then faking his death to get out of it had burned those bridges. After Ford disappeared, he’d poured all his energy into running a business and finding his twin.

He’d eventually succeeded at both, but made himself something of a town pariah in the process. Having his great niece and nephew around for the summer had given him someone to socialize with besides his employees, but then he’d spent a year on a boat reconnecting and adventuring with Ford and no one else. And that was where I came in. Last summer, when Dipper and Mabel were back, our families had mingled so freely that Stan and I had been practically inseparable. Now the kids were back at school, I was back at work, Dipper and Mabel were back in California, Ford was out east and, well… He’d finally come to a point in his life where he could use someone to bond with besides his employees and girlfriend.

How do you tell your boyfriend that he needs a social life, without sounding like you’re trying to get rid of him? Right now he was pouring a lot of time into the Mystery Shack, and the rest of his energy seemed to be going toward being a good boyfriend. Neither of which I had any right to complain about. My sons, however, were starting to feel differently.

“Mom?” Dave asked one afternoon when I was driving him to an impromptu band rehearsal. “Can you make Stan stop trying to be a dad?”

A little black hole of anxiety opened in my stomach. Yuck, this was _not_ the start of a conversation I liked. His nervous, almost apologetic tone wasn’t helping. “I thought you liked Stan,” I said carefully.

He sighed, playing with one long blonde curl. “I do. But…as your _boyfriend_ , you know? Not a _dad._ ”

That did make some kind of sense. When I’d first gotten involved with Stan, I’d been incredibly nervous about letting the kids know—not only because they were at the age when the thought “old people” getting busy was revolting, but because I hadn’t known if they were ready for their mother to move on. They had been surprisingly mature about it, pointing out that _they_ wanted to see _me_ happy just as much as I wanted happiness for _them_. They’d enjoyed seeing me laugh, occasionally having an extra adult to drive them around, and operating as something of a family unit with their friends Dipper and Mabel. Stan facilitated these things, so his presence was acceptable. In terms of having a relationship with him _themselves_ , though, they had showed little interest.

Reluctantly, I nodded to Dave. “What did he do?”

He stared out the window, still tugging at his hair. “Nothing _bad_ , I guess. I mean, he hasn’t tried to have a…a serious _talk_ , or anything. But he was asking me about school the other night while you were making dinner, and about music and stuff.” He shifted uncomfortably. “He asked how it was going with my boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes. “Perish the thought! You mean he tried to take a polite _interest_ in your _life_? Gross! Unacceptable! I’ll have a talk with him about that sort of behavior.”

“Mom!” Dave protested, turning to look at me angrily. “Come on! You know what I mean!”

“I really _don’t_ ,” I answered irritably. “I get you don’t want him trying to replace Dad. But trying to have a _conversation_ with you? You’re being unreasonable.”

His lip curled, and he crossed his arms defensively. “I like that he makes you happy, isn’t that enough? He doesn’t have to make _me_ happy, too. I’ve got my own life!”

I sighed, lifting my eyebrows. “And there is literally no room in that life for a man I really like?”

He shook his head sharply, as if trying to rid himself of a bug. “I’ve got you and Nicky. I’ve got the band, _and_ Candy and Grenda, _and_ Mabel and my friends back home to keep up with. I’ve got fucking _Horace_ floating in and asking me personal questions and trying to be the extra brother I never needed because _trust_ me, Nicky’s more than enough. I’ve got Thompson, and you think it’s easy fitting him in around tennis and school and music? You think it’s easy ignoring the remarks people make about him dating a lowly sophomore? You think it’s easy watching his fuckhead friends treat him like crap because he puts up with it? I want him to stand up for himself because he’s nice and he’s smart and he deserves better than that, but the fact that he’s dating me just gives them _more_ shit to make fun of him for!”

He ran out of steam, pressing the balls of his hands into his eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder sympathetically. Sometimes I forgot just how difficult it was to be a teenager.

“It’s just _hard_ sometimes, Mom,” he said quietly.

“I know it is, love,” I answered him. “I know.” I gave that time to sink in. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing an awesome job juggling everything. Just don’t be afraid to take a step back from something, if it gets to be too much.”

He nodded, and went back to staring out the window.

“I thought you liked Thompson’s friends,” I tentatively pried. “That’s, like, Wendy and Tambry, right? And Robbie, from your band?” That got a nod. “You hung out with all of them this summer.”

Dave shrugged. “They’re fun sometimes. And yeah, I put up with Robbie. But they can be real jerks, too.”

I gave him a wry smile. “High school’s kind of like that. But I don’t blame you for getting angry about them being mean to Thompson…you want to know something?”

He looked mildly curious, but stayed silent. I took that as a yes.

“Don’t tell Stan I said this, but there are days when I really hate Ford.”

Now he looked more than mildly curious. “His _brother_? Why?”

“Because he hurt him,” I said simply. “When I met him in person, when I saw them having fun together, it was fine. And I know he cares, and everyone makes dumb mistakes when they’re young. But he _hurt_ him. I still don’t think he understands quite how much.” Ugh, where was all this raw emotion coming into my voice from? I swallowed forcefully, blinked hard, and drew a deep breath.

Dave was staring at me with…oh crap, was that _sympathy_? “Dang, Mom, you’re really in love with him, aren’t you?”

It was my turn to avert my eyes, though luckily I had the fact that I was driving as an excuse. “Kind of. It gets…more complicated when you get older.”

A quick glance showed me a politely skeptical expression on my son’s face. I put my attention back on the road. We were nearly to Robbie’s house, where from what I’d seen three teenage boys and one goth girl would sit around drinking Pitt soda, discussing potential depressing lyrics and theoretical gigs, and occasionally picking up their instruments.

“What time do you need picking up?” I asked as the house came into view.

“I’ll see if Robbie can give me a ride home,” he told me.

“Well, call if you need me to pick you up. I don’t want you being out _too_ late, you still have homework.”

“I _know_ ,” he sighed, tossing his hair. “I will, okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled at him. “Hang in there, love. Let me know if there’s ever anything I can do to help.” Except telling Stan to stop attempting to bond, I added silently. Please don’t insist I do that.

He smiled back at me, igniting warm maternal feelings. “I will. And I guess I may have overreacted, about Stan. He was being nice and all, it was just weird.”

“I love you, Dave,” I said.

“Love you too, Mom,” he told me before opening the car door and stepping out. “See you later!”

I pulled out of the drive and headed back home. Really, for as awkward as it had started out, that had been a surprisingly good talk. What I really wanted now was to go talk to Stan about the kids who were pissing Dave off so much and see if, since he’d known them longer than me, he had any insight. But bringing up Dave’s personal life right after he complained about Stan trying to talk with him seemed like a mistake.

Darn it. Being a teenager might be difficult, but being a mom wasn’t much easier.

*

I wasn’t trying to start a prank war with my boyfriend. The whole thing started off with really good intentions; Stan was a sometime thief who loved using Halloween to terrify children. Some of his antics were pretty entertaining and I had no desire to truly _change_ him, but I felt kind of bad about the children we’d scared off during Summerween. So I thought, before the real thing rolled around, I could give him just a little taste of his own medicine—you know, make him at least think twice before he traumatized the next generation anymore. 

And yes, okay, I’d been trying to sneak off with his car since before we’d even shared our first kiss. He drove a big old El Diablo, not mint condition but definitely in “classic” territory. I’d loved it since the first time I got a look at it, and we’d spent the first few months of our relationship making jokes about me stealing it. I’d even tried several times, but Stan was always one step ahead of me. Since he started voluntarily letting me drive it on occasion, I’d stopped pretending I wanted to take it through subterfuge. I mean, I was allowed to drive the thing around town, and I’d been able to find out just what those long bench seats were good for. That was all I’d really wanted.

But if his car should, say, disappear one night… It wouldn’t be difficult at this point. He slept right next to me most nights, and I regularly woke up before him. I could just grab his keys, take the Stanmobile out for a spin, park it somewhere safe a few blocks away, and walk back to look all innocent and confused. Heck, it was so easy he probably wouldn’t even be impressed. But he might get a laugh out of it, and there was an outside chance it would make him reconsider playing mean pranks on those trick-or-treaters.

Okay, I really just wanted an excuse to win that game after all these months. Show him I was capable of a long con. But it’d certainly be a _bonus_ if he got any insight as a result.

So one cold, dark morning about a week before Halloween, I quickly showered, dressed, and headed downstairs to the table by the front door where everyone dumped keys, mail, and loose change on the way in. Stan’s car keys were right there, on top of a power bill I wasn’t looking forward to paying. I grabbed a sweater and quietly shut the door behind me before driving down to a little park a few blocks from home. I was my own flashlight on the stroll back home, and was feeling bright and invigorated when I got back to make coffee. I put the keys back exactly where I’d found them and locked the front door behind me. Like it never happened.

I drank my coffee and packed a lunch for Nicky. Horace drifted in while I was checking the daily news, so I asked him about the video game I’d seen him playing with Nicky yesterday. He blushed a beautiful shade of pearl. “Nicky’s so nice. He let me win twice!”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Maybe you’ve just gotten the hang of this one.”

Horace smiled wistfully. “Not likely. He just got this one the other day.”

“He did?” My eyebrow went back down thoughtfully. “I thought he blew all his money on snacks.”

“He did!” Horace nodded agreeably.

I felt my eyebrows pull down into a furrow. “Then where did he get the money for a new game?”

Our resident ghost suddenly looked very shifty. “I. Um. He was saving it up. I think. He didn’t spend _all_ his money on snacks.”

I drummed my fingers thoughtfully on the table and took another sip of my coffee. I really hoped he was telling me the truth.

Dave came into the kitchen and grabbed a pack of PopTarts from the pantry without looking up from his phone once. I let the issue go, but kept conversing with Horace rather than try to get a pleasant word out of my son before he’d had a chance to properly wake up. Nicky joined us a few minutes later, leaving himself just enough time to wolf down a bowl of cereal before we had to hit the road. At least he was already dressed. I left them watching videos and checking social media on their phones and headed up to put on some respectable work shoes to go with my skirt and blouse. I mentally debated waking Stan in a panic, telling him his car was missing, because at least then I’d be able to see his reaction. But I really didn’t have the time, and it’d be funnier to let him find out for himself.

I was so amused with my antics that I forgot to ask Nicky about his new game during the drive to school. I remembered it after dropping them both off, but elected not to fret too much just yet. There was probably a perfectly innocent explanation. Either that or Stan was teaching my son how to steal…which was frankly more likely. In his mind, that was probably quality bonding time with useful skills. After all, he’d taught _me_ some tricks last summer, just for fun. Odds were pretty high he’d tried doing the same with Nicky, only my little honors student was actually _using_ them.

Not necessarily, I told myself. Way to jump to the worst possible conclusion. And even if he _had_ , did I really have that much room to lecture him? I just stole my boyfriend’s car as a joke, after all.

Speaking of that…my phone rang. I was still focusing on the road, but I blindly grabbed it and answered. “Hello?”

“Where’s my car?”

I tried to channel some convincing confusion. “It was right outside when I left half an hour ago. It’s not there?”

“You know it’s not there! What’d you do with it?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s really not _there_?” I fought to keep genuine dismay in my voice. “I can see why you thought it was me, but I didn’t touch it! Are the keys there? I swear I locked the door when I left.”

He didn’t sound amused, but he didn’t sound angry, either. Exasperated, maybe. “Cut the crap, sweetie. You put it somewhere.”

“I _didn’t_. I gave up on trying to steal it months ago. You always beat me.”

“Which is why you let me _think_ you gave up. You sneaky little vixen.” Alright, there were definite hints of pride and humor in his voice now.

“Am I a vixen because you’re a silver fox?” I asked coyly.

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Sorry, hon, I just got to work,” I told him truthfully. “I’ve got to get inside before I’m late. Keep me posted, okay? I hope it wasn’t _stolen_.”

“No, you—” I hung up on him.

My phone started ringing again, but I ignored it as a I ran into work giggling.

I got a text about five minutes later: _Seriously where is it_. I replied with _I have no idea what you’re talking about._ There was nothing for an hour or so after that, but eventually another message did come through. _Had to get a ride from Soos. Hope you’re happy._ I sent him an emoji blowing a kiss.

Really, I paused to reflect, I was very lucky to be dating a man like Stan. Lots of guys would not find this entertaining in the slightest. It didn’t even occur to me at that point that he might retaliate, though in retrospect that was a pretty stupid oversight. Of _course_ he’d retaliate.

I texted him the car’s location on my lunch break, and asked if he wanted me to pick him up and help him collect it after work. I was relieved when he accepted—he could have just spent the night at the Shack, since he technically lived there, and avoided seeing me altogether. Then I would have felt bad about screwing with him.

But when I picked him up, he was laughing and shaking his head. “I should be pissed,” he remarked as we drove.

“But you’re not,” I told him brightly.

“I will be if anything’s happened to it,” he warned me.

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “I’m not _that_ much of a bitch.”

“You’re gonna pay for this, you know.”

“Oh no, are you going to spank me?” I batted my eyelashes and pouted my lips.

“Ha, you think you’re cute?”

“Yes.”

We got to the Stanmobile, and I waited outside the vehicles while he inspected it all over for damage. Once he was satisfied, he turned and gave me a genuine smile. “That was pretty good. Embarrassingly easy, but I’ll give you points for actually going for it.”

I beamed. “Does that mean you’re still coming over for dinner?”

“What, I’m gonna starve myself just to spite you? Get over yourself.”

I slipped under his arms and hugged him. “How does it feel to get played?”

“Wouldn’t know,” he bluffed. “I _let_ you get away with it.”

“Liar.” I kissed him.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.” He kissed me back. “Wanna get in?”

“Always.” I pressed my lips into his neck. “But then I’d be leaving _my_ car here, which would be stupid.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted a lift home, sweetheart.” He pulled the back door open, and lifted his eyebrows.

“I should really get home,” I said. “Nicky and Dave are waiting for me.” And yet I climbed in, stretching out on my back on the seat.

“They’ll be fine, trust me.” He slid in by my feet and shut the door.

“I do.” I gave him my warmest smile.

Then he was on top of me, and chemistry took over.

*

The next day, I didn’t have any shoes.

I didn’t notice until I was minutes away from heading out the door, because I wasn’t in a habit of walking around the house wearing anything on my feet. Then I went to put on the pair of flats I’d kicked off upon coming inside last night…and they weren’t there. I went upstairs to look, thinking maybe I’d carried them to my closet and forgotten. That was when I realized there wasn’t a single pair of shoes in my closet. Not my favorite flats, not the sandals I’d put away for the season, not my chunky white heels or my black stilettos. I wasn’t a huge shoe hound; I owned maybe ten pairs including my sneakers and sandals. But today every single one of them was missing.

I walked back out into my bedroom, put my hands on my hips, and glared at the lump under my covers. He’d done this, damn it. I _knew_ he’d done it. I tried to think I had any pairs stashed away other places, but all I could think of were the winter boots I hadn’t yet unpacked, and the worn-out tennis shoes I knew I’d left by the front door. I went back downstairs to hunt for both. Neither was anywhere near the entryway, though there _was_ a teenager glancing anxiously at the living room clock and looking at me pointedly. I ran back up and rifled through the boys’ rooms, thinking perhaps they’d been moved in there. They hadn’t. Fucker!

I grabbed a pair of flip flops from Dave’s closet, because it was better than going to work barefoot, and stalked back into my room to shake Stan awake. He blinked at me drowsily, and under better circumstances I would have felt all warm and fuzzy toward him. “Where are they?” I demanded in a low growl.

“Where’re what?” Stan mumbled, and rolled over.

“My _shoes_ , you jackass! I’m going to be late for work!”

He fanned a very expansive yawn. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I seethed quietly, and went downstairs with Dave’s flip flops. I was hoping I’d find a box of shoes in my car, but I didn’t—and there wasn’t time to look any more. We were running late already. I’d just have to hope no one would look at my feet today. Since most of my work involved sitting right behind the reception desk, the odds of that weren’t impossible. But I was still going to kill him.

Once I stopped fuming I tried, nonchalantly, to ask Nicky about how and when he’d bought his new game. I’d asked Stan about it before bed last night, and he swore up and down he hadn’t been teaching the kids anything criminal—“They wouldn’t even let me teach them poker,” as he pointed out. It was a pity Horace hadn’t been around this morning. I could have plumbed him for more information _and_ asked if he’d witnessed whatever Stan had done with my footwear while I slept. Ghosts: never around when you need them. I wondered if Ford had that in his notes on the paranormal, and the thought was enough to brighten my mood ever so slightly.

“Hey Nick,” I said, stubbornly ignoring the fact that he had his head propped against the car window. “How much was that game you were playing with Horace the other day?”

“Which _one_ ,” he mumbled sleepily.

I persisted. “The new one. With the ninjas?”

“Oh, right.” He took a long time yawning. “It was, um…thirty? I got it on sale.”

Dave made a sound like he was going to say something, but when I looked he was checking his hair in the visor mirror. I returned my focus to Nicky. “I didn’t think you had thirty dollars, after all that snack food you bought for DD&MD last weekend.”

“I didn’t buy it all myself!” he protested, as though I were an idiot.

“Still seems like a lot,” I said as mildly as I could.

“I guess,” he said uncomfortably.

Ugh, how did I ask this without wounding him? I chickened out, letting the subject drop for the time being. Maybe that wasn’t the best decision as a mother, but I’d rather error on the side of too much support than too little. Given I was already having a bad morning, it seemed wiser to keep my mouth shut.

Dave ran through the doors of the high school before the morning bell rang, at least; I had no idea if he’d make it to class in time, but it was still close enough that I’d accept it. Since the middle school was only a block away and started ten minutes later, Nicky probably did made it. I, on the other hand, caught every red light between GFMS and Barrels & Crates, meaning I was nearly ten minutes late by the time I entered the building in Dave’s flip flops.

The good news was that my boss had his office all the way at the end of the hall, so no one noticed my tardy entrance. The bad news was that, after sitting at my desk for a few minutes and turning on my space heater, I discovered the flip flops stank. Not that my son didn’t bathe regularly, but there was something unpleasant about the scent of teenage sweat and hormones. That I would now be smelling all day. Thanks, Stan.

I spent my free time that day plotting how to get him back. It was trite and childish, but I knew he put almost as much sugar in his morning coffee as I did, so I decided to do the old sugar-for-salt swap tomorrow. When I got home that night, all my shoes were back exactly where I’d left them the previous day. When I glared at Stan and told him how very _interesting_ that development was, he said I just must have not looked hard enough for them this morning. I started googling other tricks at that point, too.

So the next morning I put a bunch of salt in the sugar dish before leaving for work. Stan never said a word about it, but that night I turned on the kitchen faucet only to have all the water spray forward instead of down, drenching me. A piece of tape over the tap, it turned out, was to blame. I changed into my nightshirt early, without comment. While I was up there, I short-sheeted the bed. The following day, I started my day by getting pee all over the bathroom floor because someone had put plastic wrap between the seat and the bowl.

That evening, before coming home I made a stop at a department store and found a TV remote identical to our own. I tested it out while the boys were doing their homework, before Stan turned up for dinner. I taped it to my ankle. When we were snuggled up on the sofa watching Duck-tective later that night, I curled my feet up behind me and hit the button to change the channel. Stan’s expression of confusion and irritation was absolutely priceless. He changed it back, and I waited another ten minutes before doing it again.

He switched it back again. “So you’re resorting to using your ghost to screw with me now?”

“Hey Dave,” I bellowed in the direction of the steps. “You have Horace up there?”

“Yeah!” he shouted back.

Stan crossed his arms above his stomach and gave me a look that clearly said _give me a break_. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

Nicky was sitting at the other end of the sofa, watching with us. “He’s not down here.” He got up, walked to the foot of the steps, and called “Hey Horace!”

“Yes?” The ghost-child’s angelic voice floated down the stairs before he came into view.

Stan muttered something to himself and went back to watching.

“You’re just losing your mind, old man.” I playfully bumped my shoulder into his arm. “You bumped it by mistake.”

“Like hell I did!”

“Oooh, Duct-tective.” Horace settled into the rocking chair in the corner to watch with us.

As soon as he sat down, I changed the channel again.

“Okay,” Stan demanded, turning fully to give all of us a deeply suspicious glare, “How are you doing it?”

I blinked innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Up,” he told me, getting to his feet and gesturing for me to follow.

“Aw, but I’m all comfy,” I protested, adjusting my foot to be sure my pants hid the remote.

“ _Up_ ,” he repeated in the voice of someone who used to order employees around. I got up. “You’re asking for an old-fashioned pat-down, sweetheart.”

I put a hand to my heart theatrically. “Stan, not in front of the _kids_!”

“One more outburst like that, I’ll make it a strip search.” He winked at me before turning to Nicky. “If she doesn’t have anything on her, I’m checking you next, kid.”

Nicky’s eyes grew wide. “What are you talking about?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry about it. He’s clean, hon.”

Stan gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, but definitely liked. “Arms out.” And he proceeded to actually pat me down, starting with my arms and moving down over my back and chest. I pretended this was perfectly normal and not something that was making me incredibly horny, plastering on a bland smile as he put his hands around my thighs tightly and moved down to my knees. I should have just pulled up my pant leg to reveal the remote and ended it, I suppose. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to make him stop.

He got to my right ankle. “Really, Teegs?

I grinned and shrugged. I hadn’t expected to keep it going indefinitely, though that would certainly have been funny. I had another minor prank planned for the night, and after this he’d think he was in the clear.

Nicky and Horace had gone back upstairs to play video games, and I could hear Dave’s guitar playing mixed with his side of another endless phone conversation. I was about ready to head up to bed, but when I went into the kitchen to turn off the lights I paused. “Hey, c’mere a second! I just remembered this thing I saw online today.” I poured myself a glass of water.

After a minute, Stan appeared in the doorway. I sat down at the kitchen table. “It said only one person in five can balance a glass of water on the back of their hand. Can you believe that?” I put my palm flat on the table, and set the full glass on the back of my hand. “It’s _easy_. There’s no way there are people who can’t do this! Right?”

He raised an eyebrow, but came over and sat down next to me. “You already glow in the dark. You really need me to tell you _this_ makes you special?”

I sighed. “I guess not. I just thought it was kind of cool. Wanna try?”

“Sweetie, who taught you to pick locks? And pockets? There’s _nothing_ these hands can’t do.”

I smirked at him. “Sounds like the bluff of someone who thinks he’s not in that special twenty percent of the population.” I didn’t take theater in high school for nothing; my face lit up as though an entertaining idea had suddenly hit me. “I’ll bet you ten bucks you can’t do _both_ hands!”

“Ten bucks?” Stan laughed. “You’re on.”

I got up to pour a second glass of water. When I returned, he had both palms pressed against the wooden surface. Carefully, I set the full glasses of water on first his left, then his right. “See?” he said triumphantly as I stood back up.

I applauded politely. Then I walked out of the room.

“Aw, come on!” he called after a few seconds. I put my foot on the bottom stair, knowing he’d hear the creak. “Don’t think I won’t just spill them!”

I walked back a few steps. “If you spill them, that will be admitting your hands aren’t quite as amazing as you think they are. Surely a master thief can get out of this without spilling a drop.”

This was met with silence.

I went upstairs.

When he still hadn’t come up half an hour later, I thought I’d better go check on him. I knew he could be stubborn, but ten minutes (five of trying to get out of it plus five to spill the glasses and clean up the water) seemed like more than enough. It seemed unlikely that _this_ was the joke that put him over the edge and made him mad at me—not to mention I hadn’t heard the front door. So what was taking him so long?

The sounds from the boys’ rooms had tapered off, so I walked quietly as I descended the stairs. I was made it through most of the living room as was turning to head into the kitchen when I saw Stan. He was lying on his side on the linoleum, but his right arm was tucked up under him and he’d rolled partway over onto his stomach. His mouth was slightly open and his glasses had been knocked askew. I stood between the kitchen and living room, completely immobilized by fear, trying to see if his back was rising and falling. I couldn’t tell from here.

Inside me, a war was raging. One side denounced the whole thing as another prank, and told me not to let him know I’d been scared even for a minute. The other side was just screaming: one long high-pitched scream without breaks for breath, because I’d been here before, staring at a body, thinking it must be some kind of joke.

I could risk looking like an idiot. I couldn’t risk going through that again.

My legs lost their strength about the same time I dived forward, kneeling at his side and putting my fingers to his throat to feel for a pulse. There was one, thank goodness—and now that I was close, I could see him breathing. “Stan,” I murmured, moving my hand to his cheek. “Stan!” He was warm, but unresponsive. Fuck. “ _Stan_!” I wasn’t supposed to shake him, right? Or move him. He was breathing, he didn’t need CPR. I’d left my phone upstairs by the bed. Sonofabitch. I got my feet back and thundered up the steps to grab it, dashing back into the kitchen and unlocking it in record time. He hadn’t moved. Shit. This was real.

I felt like a giant hand was squeezing me to death. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t feel anything around me, either. I barely registered tapping digits into my phone, and was surprised when I heard an operator say “Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”

Stan sat up very abruptly. “Holy mackerel, you called 911?”

I stared at him as he adjusted his glasses. “Hello?” the operator said on the other end of the line. “Hello, what’s your emergency?”

I cleared my throat. “Everything’s fine. I’m so sorry.” I ended the call before I had to sit through someone I didn’t know lecturing me about how 911 was not something to use lightly. I stared at Stan some more, unable to even process what I was feeling. He grinned at me.

My body sucked in a deep, sharp breath, and I let it out shakily as I put my hand to my chest. I closed my eyes and lowered my head. I wanted to hit him _and_ kiss him, and I also wanted to melt into a non-sentient puddle of relief on the kitchen floor.

“Teegs?” Stan said after I’d been still and silent too long. “Sweetheart?”

I raised my head and opened my eyes. “That was _not_ funny,” I said. My voice was pitched low, but stayed remarkably level.

In direct contradiction to that statement, the asshole laughed at me. “I didn’t think you’d _buy_ it!”

“I was _scared_!” I shoved him in the shoulder. “I thought it was probably a joke, yeah, but I couldn’t know that, could I? You _fucker_!” I shoved him again, angrily. “You just about gave _me_ a heart attack!”

He caught my wrist, slipping his hand to wrap around mine. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he was still laughing. “I didn’t mean to scare you _that_ bad.”

“What, you forgot my husband dropped dead on me out of nowhere?” I demanded, holding tightly onto his hand.

Stan grimaced. “Yeah, kinda.”

“How do you _kinda_ forget something like that?”

“I don’t know. How did _you_ think it was funny to steal the Stanmobile when that’s exactly what Marilyn tried to do?”

That brought me up short. “Who the hell is Marilyn?”

He winced and scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. “Oh yeah. Guess I never told you.”

I raised my eyebrows, finally calming down a bit. “So who _is_ Marilyn?”

“The woman who tried to steal my car,” he said evasively. “A long time ago.”

“But who _was_ she?” I pressed. I was interested now. “Were you two in some sort of heist together?” That sounded ridiculously dramatic, but so did most of his escapades as a young man.

“No.” He scowled. “ _She_ tried to scam _me_.”

“So not some random hijacker?”

“Jeez, would you let it go already?” he snapped.

I held up my hands in surrender. “I just want to know why stealing the Stanmobile is suddenly out of line. I’ve been joking about that as long as we’ve been _dating_.” Longer, actually. “And you seemed pretty entertained by it last week.”

He sighed. “She was a waitress in Vegas, okay?”

Vegas? “You didn’t _marry_ her, did you?”

I’d thought I was making a joke, but this was clearly the wrong thing to say. “It got annulled. Just let it go, alright?”

I instantly felt repentant—how had he managed to turn this around so that _I_ felt bad after _he_ scared the shit out of me? “I’m sorry,” I said simply. “You never said anything.”

“Lots of stuff I don’t say,” he grumbled, looking down at our joined hands.

I scooted across the linoleum until my back hit his chest, wrapping our arms around me. That gave the reassurance of physical contact without him having to look me in the eyes. “Have you…have you ever even had a real girlfriend?”

His back straightened indignantly, though he kept his arms around me. “Course I did!” He hesitated. “In high school.”

I waited a minute, running my thumb back and forth over his hand, before asking a follow-up question. “How long were you together?”

Not having to look me in the face really seemed to help him admit these things. “About two years.”

I digested that with a silent nod. Then—“Did you love her?”

“I dunno.” His shrug felt angry. “We were just kids.”

“Did she screw you over, too?”

He shrugged again, but this time it felt more defeated than anything. “Nah. Just ditched me for some hippie musician.”

I made a face, though he couldn’t see it. “Fucking hippies.”

His chest shook against my back in a silent laugh, and I nestled happily back against it. I’d made him laugh, that was good. And yes, he’d probably intentionally changed the subject to diffuse my anger over the prank, but hey, it had distracted me and made me feel better.

“Well,” I told him, getting to my feet and turning to face him, “you don’t have to worry about _me_ ever leaving you for some crappy musician. That transcendental shit is the worst.” I pecked him on the cheek. “And you don’t have to worry about me trying to scam you out of your car, either. It’s a great car, don’t get me wrong. But I like you better.”

Politely, I walked over to turn out the kitchen light rather than watching to see how much that meant to him. “I’m going to bed,” I said, flicking the switch. “You coming?”

*

You would think, maybe, that I’d learned my lesson after that. That maybe it would occur to me these jokes were going to create trust issues. That the idea of losing Stan was genuinely scary to me. That they were escalating a little too quickly.

You would be wrong. Despite my scare that night, I woke up the next morning profoundly entertained by the whole thing and already plotting a way to retaliate. But I’d have to wait a few days to execute my next prank, for several reasons. First, he’d be expecting something today or tomorrow. He wouldn’t have let his guard down completely after that, but he’d be suspecting it _less_.

And anyway, second—it was Halloween.

Dave was going to a party with Thompson, Robbie, and a bunch of friends from school. It sounded like a few of them were even underclassmen like him, which made me feel a little more comfortable with the whole thing. Also, it was at Robbie’s house, and his parents were total sweethearts who had promised to stay home for the duration. I’d met them before, since most of Dave’s band rehearsals were there, and I didn’t think they’d sit back and let anything _too_ crazy go down.

Nicky was going out trick-or-treating with Mark and Cody, some of his gaming friends. He was actually wearing a _scary_ costume this year, too—the kind that just a few years before would have given him nightmares. He was this creepy skeletal thing with no visible mouth or eyes, and it was just…yuck. Horace found it unnerving, and when the actual _ghost_ thinks you’re creepy you’re either doing something very right or very wrong.

Stan was utterly disgusted with the fact that Soos had agreed to let his abuela and girlfriend decorate the Mystery Shack for the holiday. “It’s an attraction for stuff that’s _weird_ and _creepy_ ,” he complained to me as I poured mini Milky Ways into a large bowl. “And now it’s covered in smiling ghosts and cute pumpkins! What’s the world coming to, I dunno.”

I covered my mouth to hide my smile. He sounded like every cranky old man ever right now, despite the fact that he was sitting at the kitchen table in a full devil costume. Not many men his age still wanted to dress up, but even with his reluctance to give away candy he seemed to really enjoy Halloween. Granted, yes, a large part of that enjoyment came from terrifying children, but where else would I find a man who was interested in spending the evening in a costume that complimented mine? Maybe if we’d been going out for a party, but no. We were staying in, handing out candy, and watching a slasher film. (He liked those movies because I got grossed out or stressed and ended up pressing my face into his shoulder. I liked them for the same reason.)

Of course, last time we’d celebrated anything with trick-or-treaters, we’d been in a far less populated area and minus a resident ghost. My new house was in a high-traffic area, and Horace was _so_ excited to be included. So spending half the evening partway out of our costumes was probably not an option.

But. The boys and I had scraped some time on our own together to make jack-o-lanterns. I’d put up spiderwebs on the front porch, and hung “ghosts” from the big tree in the front yard. There were fake tombstones with skeletal hands protruding from the ground, and a giant spider looming over the railing. I’d spent too much, but it looked really cool. And then to counter it all, I was dressed in a cute little angel costume complete with wings and a halo.

I left Stan at the house with Horace to answer the door while I drove Dave and Nicky to their respective friends’ houses to get ready. This was the first time he’d shown any active interest in our little deceased friend, so I knew he was planning to use him for something awful. I also knew he had a bunch of raw sausages that he planned to pull out of a slit in the stomach of his costume every time children knocked on the door. I was trying very hard not to think about how unsanitary that was, or how many pigs had died for this endeavor. Not to mention the poor children that were going to be traumatized…but dammit all, I did like watching him have fun.

It was mostly dark by the time I got home, and families were strolling up and down the sidewalk of our street. I parked next to the Stanmobile, watching as a group of children walked up to the door. These kids were pretty small; one of them in a superhero outfit trailed behind the others on chubby little legs. The one thing I’d made Stan promise was not to scare anyone who looked younger than first grade. I got out of the car, leaning against it, crossing my arms, and glowing ominously—like the sort of angel who might whip out a flaming sword at any minute.

My front door opened, and Stan stepped into view. He was still in costume, and I saw his eyes flicker over the kids gathering in front of the door. A look of resignation came over his face, and he started dropping candy into bags. It looked like he was only doing one piece per kid, which felt stingy to me, but it seemed like an acceptable compromise.

When the kids started back the way they’d come, they all noticed me. A few of their eyes got wide, but several of them waved. I smiled and waved back. There was already another group coming. I really hoped I’d bought enough candy. I hurried up the porch steps; Stan had spotted me too (I supposed I was hard to miss), and waited in the open doorway while I approached. I beamed, giving him a kiss on the cheek in full view of the half-dozen children coming up the walk.

“You saw that,” he stated loudly. “I did _not_ scare the little ones.”

“Yeah.” I grinned, leaning back into the door frame. “You’re a regular saint.”

“These ones are older.”

I shook my head, but couldn’t keep the smirk from my face. “You’re going to run out of sausage.”

“Either I run out of sausage or you run out of chocolate, sweetie.”

That was a good point. I _wanted_ those leftover candy bars. “Oof. You know my weakness.”

“I know _all_ your weaknesses.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t be too sure of that. A lady has to have _some_ secrets.”

“Didn’t you tell Mabel once that you’re no lady?”

Shrugging one shoulder, I turned to go inside before the local children made it up the steps. “Changed my mind. Where’s Horace?”

As if on cue, the air around me grew frigid and a small, lit jack-o-lantern floated over my head. “Sorry,” Horace whispered, which meant he’d probably had to pass right through me to get through the door. The children froze in the middle of saying “trick-or-treat,” riveted by the site. I heard a gasp.

Then a translucent ten-year-old with dated spectacles and pajamas popped into view. “Happy Halloween!” he said, smiling from ear to ear. The sudden appearance did startle screams out of a few kids, but Horace was just too _cute_ to find scary. Everyone who stayed on the porch long enough to get over the initial shock and really look at him wound up returning his smile. Stan wound up handing out four more pieces of candy, and shook his head in disgust as the trick-or-treaters walked happily away. “Halloween is supposed to be scary!” he told both of us in frustration. “Why does no one get that anymore?”

Horace hung his head in shame. “Sorry, Mr. Pines.”

“We went over this,” Stan sighed. “You _don’t_ appear and hit them all with your cute little dead kid charm, is that really so hard?”

I took Stan by the arm, gently directing him back into the house. “Horace, stay corporeal and hand out the candy, would you?” I asked him. “Go ahead and smile.”

“He’s just a kid!” I hissed to my boyfriend as I escorted him back into the living room. “Don’t bully him!”

“A kid?” Stan sputtered. “He’s been around longer than I have! A hundred years is enough time to learn how to follow orders.”

“Really? You think that’s enough time to reform old habits? Would you suddenly start paying your taxes fifty years from now just because someone told you to?”

He seemed strangely pleased to be able to answer “No way! I haven’t paid my full taxes a day in my life. I’m not starting when I’m dead.”

I spread my hands wide. “See? Old habits die harder than people!”

Behind us, I could hear Horace chatting animatedly with a group of children. He even recognized who most of them were supposed to be, thanks to Nicky’s lessons in pop culture.

“ _Look_ how happy he is,” I urged, then relented slightly. “How about if you scare off a few more groups, then come watch a movie with me while Horace answers the door for the rest of the night?”

“Fine,” he agreed with a heavy sigh.

I winked at him. “I know, hanging out alone with me is _such_ a drag. That’s why you practically live here.”

“If that’s an invitation to make it permanent, you’re on. It’s hard to relax at the Shack when you know Soos’ grandma might start vacuuming any minute.”

“How can I resist the offer of you spending even more time in front of my tv without contributing to utilities?” I managed a convincing laugh. Hopefully it wasn’t too obvious that inside I was panicking. Had he just suggested moving in outright? Yes, he already had a key and his own toothbrush here, but that…sounded like something you saved for people you were in love with. Then again, this was Stan—he genuinely might just want the opportunity to freeload a little bit more. He cared about me, sure, but I wasn’t going to underestimate his love of money. (And to be fair, running the Mystery Shack hadn’t exactly set him up with a 401K.)

“You _can’t_ resist,” he told me with a cocky wink, completing the image of confidence by pointing a finger gun at me.

I remembered something he’d told me months ago, in a rare moment of vulnerability and honesty. _I’m always insecure, it’s why I act so confident._ I stepped into his space, slipping both my hands into his. “Alright then,” I said, hoping that I wasn’t making a huge mistake. “I won’t.”

He blinked at me, and his eyebrows twitched upwards just enough to betray his surprise that it had been that easy. I laughed as my tension bubbled to the surface and dissipated. “What, you were expecting me to refuse? I’m nothing if not practical, honey.”

“You know, sometimes,” he told me, pulling one of his hands out from mine to run a hand through his hair in bewilderment, “you’re pretty weird.”

I grinned. “A real smooth talker would have ended that sentence one word sooner.”

Stan’s shoulders relaxed, and he laughed. “Yeah, but a nutjob like you wouldn’t want me to. Move aside, sweetheart, I’ve got kids to scare.”

*

A few days into November, I filled up the sink in my bathroom with water until the entire bowl was nice wet. Then I uncorked the small glass jar from my medicine cabinet and dumped the entire contents of it into the sink. A few of the little gray tablets vanished down the drain immediately, while the rest of them stuck to the wet sides and started to dissolve. I dropped the jar on the counter, turned off the faucet, counted to five in my head, and then screamed.

I grabbed one of the tablets, squishing it between my finger and thumb to make sure it really was a lost cause. It smooshed easily. No noises from the bedroom yet; good grief, that man could sleep through anything. Feeling slightly cruel, I nevertheless ran into the bedroom and shook him frantically awake. “Stan! Stan!”

He sat up so fast our skulls almost cracked against each other. He also winced and put a hand to his neck, but he was still staring at me with eyes wide open. “What’s wrong?”

Oh, I was a really awful person. “My pills! I spilled them in the sink!”

“What, like, your birth control?” he asked warily, sliding his feet over the side of the bed and into a pair of slippers.

_Seriously?_ That was where his mind went first? “No,” I twitched my head from side to side, widening my eyes like I might cry. “My _pills_. The ones Ford made.” The ones his scientist brother had concocted from native Gravity Falls fireflies. The ones that ensured I continued to glow in the dark—and more importantly, that I continued to maintain a body temperature typical of humans. The ones, in short, that I took every week to avoid turning into a pile of charred bones.

Stan didn’t even take time to grab his glasses. He was out of bed and staggering into the bathroom in a heartbeat, wide awake and scrabbling at the disintegrating pills in the sink by the time I dashed back there to join him. His fingertips and the sides of the sink had gray sludge all over them. “Not _all_ of them, right?” he asked in agitation, still trying to grab one. “I’ll get Ford back out here if you’ve got a few weeks left. He can make some more…” He trailed off as it struck him that even if Ford could drop everything to rush out here, it was _November_. All the fireflies were long dead. There’d be nothing to make new pills _with_.

He put a hand on the counter to steady himself, and the expression on his face wiped out any mischievous joy I might have taken from this. He looked as if he’d just been given his own death sentence.

My heart was not made of stone; I folded immediately. “I’m joking,” I admitted, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I was getting you back for the heart attack thing last week.”

Stan stayed frozen for a moment while my words registered, but when they did, his arms tightened around me in return. He even laughed, though there was an unfamiliar shakiness to it. “So you thought you’d give me a _real_ heart attack? That it?”

I sighed in relief. “This is insane. You know that, right? I’m already scared of what you’re going to do to top this.”

“Kidnap you?” he suggested, letting me go and leaning against the wall. “Change all the locks on the house while you’re at work? Send fake ransom notes?”

“Kidnap me?” I repeated skeptically. “Isn’t that just…going out on a date?”

“Not if I tie you up and throw you in the trunk.” He grinned.

I raised my eyebrows. “That sounds like a hot date. Let’s do that next time both boys are out.”

Stan laughed. “Trust me, it’s not that great.”

I shook my head and followed him to the wall, leaning into him. “Well, no, not if it’s real bad guys doing it. But if you know it’s your boyfriend…eh, it has potential.”

“You’re a freak,” he told me affectionately.

“You know it.” I kissed his chest.

One of his hands crept up my back, ending between my shoulders. “So your pills are safe, then?”

I nodded.

“Not gonna turn into the human torch on me?”

“Nope.”  
“You gonna stop trying to outdo me?”

I snuggled against him happily. “Only if you admit I win.”

“ _Win_? Not on your life!”

“Alright, fine,” I relented. “You win.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re scared of what I’ll do next.” His fingers crept around my side to caress my ticklish spot.

I squeaked and wiggled away. “Yes, partly. But also because I feel bad for scaring you like that.” I started to step closer again, but he tried to tickle me again and I danced back. “And because I trust you,” I concluded—a line that I hadn’t intended to deliver while giggling, but oh well. “I don’t want to screw that up by getting carried away.”

He grabbed me, pulling me close and tickling me on both sides. I wriggled and shrieked, but didn’t try to escape. He subsided within a few seconds, pulling me into a kiss instead. “So don’t kidnap you, then?” he inquired when we’d been close and quiet for a minute.

“Oh no, you can absolutely kidnap me,” I breathed into his shoulder. “But I’m done trying to trick you. I swear.” I ran my hand up his forearm, tracing the line of an old scar with my thumb.

“Okay. Me too.” He paused. “It was fun while it lasted, though.” He poked me one more time in my ticklish spot until I giggled. “Today’s Saturday?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Wanna go back to bed?”

“You think you can go back to sleep after a scare like that?”

“Sweetie, I think you’re giving yourself too much credit.” He smiled, and I reached up to run my fingers through his hair.

“No I’m not. I saw your face when you thought I was going to burn up.”

“Well yeah. You know how hard it is to find a woman who properly appreciates my sex appeal?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Oy. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

“Hey you want fancy lines, go someplace else.”

Alright, enough teasing. “Nah, I’m good.” I stepped away, walking back to the bedroom. My boys had slept right through my screaming, as I’d known they would; it was a weekend and the sun was barely up. If I got to curl back up in a warm bed next to Stan, maybe I _would_ go back to sleep for a little bit.

Besides, now that the prank war was over, I could finally let myself relax again.

*

“So I heard Stan moved in,” Clara informed me as we strolled through the brisk autumn air.

“You heard as in, Dave mentioned it to Grenda?” I asked. “Or as in, the whole town already knows about it?”

“Well _I_ heard it from Grenda,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean the whole town _doesn’t_ know.”

“How the hell would anyone else know?” I demanded, though I didn’t really expect an answer. Gossip travelled almost as fast as paranormal events around here. “Most of his stuff is still in his room at the Mystery Shack! Not like there’s been a moving van to spot or anything.”

Clara made a non-committal sound. “So how’s it going?”

“Fine, I guess?” There was no judgement in her voice, but weren’t _that_ close as friends yet. “I haven’t noticed that much of a difference, honestly.”

She shot me a quick smile. “Only because he hasn’t moved all his stuff over there yet. I _still_ remember when I moved in with Hank, and that was almost twenty years ago. We didn’t see the carpet for days.”

I grimaced. I still hadn’t quite finished unpacking all _our_ stuff from the move, though it was mostly boxes of old books and toys that had been relegated to the basement unopened. “All Stan’s stuff fits in one bedroom of the Shack,” I pointed out with forced optimism. “It can’t be _that_ bad.”

“I hope you’re right. Are Dave and Nicky adjusting okay?”

“I think so.” I slowed to a stop as we approached a traffic light. “I was hoping you’d know more than me, actually. You know how kids are.”

She nodded in understanding as we waited for the light to change. “Grenda doesn’t tell me anything, either. She broke up with her long distance boyfriend back in August, and I only heard about it last week! I have to say, though, I’m relieved it’s over.”

I had some dim recollections of hearing about this boy. “He was…German, right?”

“Austrian.” She rolled her eyes. “And rich. The fact that he was that interested was great for her self-esteem, and he seemed like a nice enough boy. But sending her off to these fancy parties on her own, visit Europe over spring break on someone else’s dime? My nerves couldn’t take it.”

“No kidding!” We crossed the street hurriedly before the light could change back, and then I resumed the conversation. “My nerves can barely handle Dave having a boyfriend, period. To tell you the truth, I never thought they’d be together this long.”

“What about Nicky? No dating on the horizon there?”

“Ugh!” I laughed. “I hope not! I’ve got enough to worry about already. So how is Grenda doing? I’ve hardly seen her or Candy since school started.”

“They’re still inseparable,” she smiled. “And still weird. I’m so proud.”

I gave her a thumbs-up. “How’s work been going?”

“Oh, you know. Organizing events, reading to kids, teaching older people how to find books with the computerized system.”

“At least you get to move around,” I said with contained jealousy. “I’m stuck behind my desk all day.”

“But I bet you have more time to sit and read than I do,” Clara countered.

“Got that right,” I agreed. “I need to stop by the library again and pick up something new. I’ve cycled through all my old favorites already, _and_ the ones Stan recommended to me.”

“Is it really _that_ boring there?”

“I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t complain. It’s dull, but I’ve got the hang of balancing my schedule finally. With Stan living with us and tennis season winding down for Dave, I feel like I may actually have a chance to breathe soon!”

Clara laughed in sympathy. “You’re juggling a lot of balls. I think I’d be melting down.”

“Does Grenda do any extracurricular stuff?”

“Just powder-puff football so far. She’s talking about trying out for a play in the spring.”

“Ooh, do you know what play?”

“I’m sure _she_ does. But I have no idea.”

We walked in silence for half a block, and then I inquired about what books she was reading when she had the time. I got a few intriguing ones to put on my list. I talked her ear off about mystery novels and dystopian futures after that, and by the time I’d yakked on about it more than enough for one day, we were heading home and my fingers were numb with cold.

“So what does the town really think about me?” I worked up the nerve to ask. “Do you really all gossip about me when you get together? You must have other people come and go from Gravity Falls, what makes me so special?”

Clara did me the service of thinking through her answer. “Nothing, really,” she said slowly. “We get our fair share of tourists, but they don’t usually mingle. Not that many people _do_ move here. Sometimes it seems like unless you’re born here, there’s a magical force driving people away. But no, you’re not the first—just the first in a couple years. And if it makes you feel any better, they all got gossiped about for the first few months, too. Heck, we still gossip about each other plenty!”

That did make me feel a little better. But she still hadn’t answered my first question. I decided to rephrase it. “Is it just me, though? Or are they all talking about Nicky and Dave, too?”

“It’s hard to say. I think the kids got it at first, but now they’re old news. It’s us adults who don’t have anything better to do that make up theories about your love life.”

“Oh no, they _don’t_ ,” I protested, blushing.

She laughed. “Well I know for a fact that Soos has half a dozen scenarios for your wedding written out.”

I squinted my eyes shut as hard as I could, wishing those words away, and tripped on a gap in the sidewalk. “Soos should be thinking more about his _own_ potential wedding! Melody’s been living with him a lot longer than I’ve been with Stan.”

Clara’s lips pursed in amusement. “I think some of them were written in collaboration with Mabel, to be fair.”

“At least Soos and Mabel know us!”

“Don’t shoot the messenger!”

“Sorry.” I flashed her a grin, to show I wasn’t upset. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it. I just want to know that people don’t think I’m some crazy femme fatal sweeping in from out of town and scandalizing everyone.”

“Teagan, no one in their right mind would ever think that. It’s just fascinating to see Stan…well…settling down. I think that’s what all the fuss is about. He and the Shack have been around almost as long as I remember, and _I_ don’t recall ever seeing a woman around or hearing gossip about a girlfriend.”

I rolled my eyes. “I also have a resident ghost and glow in the dark, but I don’t hear anyone gossiping about _that_.”

“No one’s impressed by that sort of thing around here anymore.”

“Right.” I sighed. “I wish I had the time and money for a gym membership. Winter _sucks_.”

“I don’t know, it can be fun if you like skiing or curling up by a fireplace with a book. Go rent a cabin out in the middle of nowhere and get yourself snowed in.” She actually winked at me!

“With or without my children?” I had to ask.

“You’d actually consider shutting yourself up in a secluded cabin with no wifi and two teenagers?” Clara’s eyes widened. “You really _are_ brave! I meant just you and Stan. I’d be happy to have Dave over. Nicky too, if he doesn’t have friends of his own to stay with.”

“Thank you,” I told her sincerely. “That’s so kind! I’ll think about it. What are you guys doing for winter break, anyway? It seems like it’ll be here before we know it and oh _fuck_ , I have no idea what to buy Stan for Christmas.” Especially now that I knew the whole town would spend a week talking about whatever I chose. Hiding away in a cabin was sounding better by the second.

*

I slammed the door of my car and ran up the steps as quickly as possible. It had snowed the night before, and even though most of it had melted away by this afternoon my breath still made clouds in the air. Stan’s car wasn’t in the driveway; part of me was curious about where he might be, but most of me was excited to get a few minutes alone at home. Dave was at the movies with Thompson, and Nicky was at a marathon DD&MD session with his friends. Horace was home, true, but he’d spent the entire morning corporeal. Now that his “brothers” were gone he was probably recharging.

If Stan wasn’t around, I was going to take advance of the time to do some baking. I barely had time to cook dinner most days, let alone feed my baking addiction. I could finish the book I was reading while the cookies were in the oven. I wondered if he’d run out to the Shack to help Soos with some new taxidermied monstrosity, or if it was some mundane errand. On impulse, I googled recipes for candied peanuts on my phone. There were several that I knew I had the ingredients for…maybe I’d do those before the cookies. He loved store-bought toffee peanuts, and homemade had to be better, right? I also needed to get some exercise and write out a list of groceries for the week, but I had all evening for that.

After putting on the radio to my favorite oldies station, I mixed together double quantities of butter, brown sugar, syrup, and a dash of cinnamon. I stirred in enough peanuts to make it a gloppy mess, and spread it out on a baking sheet.

Twenty minutes later, the kitchen smelled absolutely amazing. I was mixing chocolate chips into the cookie dough by then, and ready to find out who had stolen the priceless engagement ring in my story. I pulled the baking tray out of the oven as I heard the front door open, and thought the timing couldn’t be more perfect as I called out a greeting over Barry Bucket’s crooning from the radio.

I took the oven mitts off my hands and stuck the cookie dough into the fridge to chill. I heard footsteps behind me as I moved to close the refrigerator—but before I could turn around and greet Stan, something hard pressed into the middle of my back. Not just hard. Cold. And sharp. I stopped moving at once, standing calmly in front of the fridge with my heart jumping around inside me like a frog on cocaine.

Someone grabbed my right wrist, pulling it around behind my back. A cold circle clicked into place. They reached for my left arm, dragging my right along with it and pressing the blade of the knife into my back as they attempted to cuff me without removing it.

I took a soft, shaky breath. “Stan?” I managed to pack both fear and hope into that one syllable.

“Shut up,” said a voice that sounded an awful lot like Stan’s. The pressure from the knife lessened, and I waited with my breath held as he shuffled around behind me. “Don’t move,” he added gruffly. It was definitely Stan. I knew what this was. And my heart was still bouncing around my chest a million miles a minute, but it was a different (better) mix of fear and excitement.

A strip of cloth went over my upper face, and I stood very still as it was pulled tight and knotted. I could see a thin line of the kitchen floor underneath the blindfold, but it was effective enough that I wasn’t expecting the second strip of fabric until it pressed against my lips. My mouth opened slightly in surprise, and he tugged it into a taut gag.

Oh my. I was _way_ too excited by this development.

The knife had stopped pushing against my back, but he grabbed me by my cuffed wrists and pushed me forward. I walked blindly, masochistically hoping I’d trip over or smack into something. Instead, after only twenty steps or so, he stopped pushing me and spun me roughly around. “Sit.”

A wooden chair—probably the one between the living room and front hall—bumped into the back of my knees, and I lowered my butt uncertainly until it hit the seat. Stan didn’t say anything else, though I heard movement. It was hard to relax with my hands trapped behind my back, but I didn’t feel much like relaxing anyway. His hands grabbed my ankles, and even through my jeans I could feel the coarseness of the robe he was tying them with. All that boating and fishing experience made him so good with knots. He’d showed me tons of them over the summer, and I wondered which one he was using on me now. The thought made smile, though doing so pulled against the gag.

I held my breath when I sensed him straightening back up. I had no idea what was coming next, no expectations. It still stunned me when he lifted me easily and threw me over his shoulder. I squeaked, but couldn’t articulate any of the things I’d normally say, like _watch out for the door frame_ or _careful, I’m sliding off!_ I didn’t need to say it. He shifted me into a more stable (not comfortable, but stable) position without being told.

We took a few quick steps. I heard the front door open, and the chilly fall air hit me. Stan hesitated a minute, shut the door behind us, and started down the front steps. Each step bounced me ever so slightly, and I shivered in the cold, but I was more than excited enough to make up for it. He paused again, and then I found myself unceremoniously dumped onto the seat of a car. I shifted until I was laying sideways on it in a tolerable position…it was surprisingly difficult to do. But I recognized the material of the seat against my cheek: Stan’s El Diablo.

It was warmer in here. The sick part of me was disappointed I wasn’t bouncing around the trunk right now, but given the weather today this was probably a more sensible choice. A long drive in a freezing trunk with no coat was probably one step too far into the abduction fantasy.

I wondered where he was taking me. And I couldn’t ask. I loved it.

I heard the car door slam shut, and the radio came on with the engine. The same station I’d been listening to in the house. Oh crap, had I turned the oven off? I didn’t think I had. But he had to have noticed I was baking—he probably would have done it rather than let the house burn down in our absence.

The handcuffs were biting into my left wrist. I squirmed, trying to get away from the discomfort, but couldn’t manage it. A minute later the car came to a quick stop, and I nearly slid off the seat. Stan’s driving was…not the best. Hopefully I was still in one piece when we reached our destination!

I was, though I was also definitely grateful that he’d thought to put me in the backseat. More than five minutes of sliding around there had been enough for my position to start becoming tedious rather than provocative. The trunk would have been far worse.

Luckily, as soon as Stan turned off the car and slung me back over his shoulder, the magic came back. We walked through the cold again, and boards squeaked under our weight. As he paused to pull open a door, I heard a goat bleat somewhere nearby. Of course. Where else would he have taken me?

The door closed behind us. I wished I could ask where Soos and company were, because I really didn’t need the whole town discussing my idea of a hot date. But I’d have to assume Stan had thought of that in advance and made sure they were elsewhere. I trusted him.

Up more creaking stairs. “I’m already regretting this tomorrow,” he commented, sounding more like himself and less like a heartless kidnapper. “I’m too old to be carrying a hundred pounds up and down stairs.” Hm, just as well I couldn’t talk. It meant I had no obligation to inform him he’d underestimated my weight by more than thirty pounds. “Doing okay there?” he asked when we hit a landing. I shifted so that he could feel my nod. “Good.”

One more flight of stairs (this one accompanied by grunts of exertion) and we entered a room. I was dumped onto a lumpy mattress, and had a moment to process my surroundings. The trip up the steps had knocked my blindfold a little askew, so I had a partial view out of one eye. I’d been in Stan’s room at the Mystery Shack before, but not often. I had a view of some boxes and knick-knacks against a wall, and I could see a small table with a few books and bottles on it. It was warm in here, almost uncomfortably so. It was quiet.

Stan’s weight settled next to me on the bed as he leaned over and pulled the blindfold the rest of the way off. It caught in my hair and I winced, but I was pleased to be able to see again. My jaw was aching and my tongue felt unpleasantly dry, too. “Wanna take this off too?” I asked, though not a single one of the words came out distinguishable.

“Sorry, sweetie, didn’t catch that.” He was massaging his shoulder with one hand, but he also looked very pleased with himself. I glared at him. He raised his eyebrows and waited.

“I _said_ you should take this fucking gag out,” I attempted, making every effort to articulate the words around the gag. It didn’t go well.

Stan grinned. “What’s that? Can’t catch a word you’re saying.”

I worked my jaw and tongue back and forth until I could spit the gag out. “I said fuck you!” I told him, making faces as I realized just how dry my mouth was. “And also can I have a drink.”

He folded his arms. “Maybe if you ask nicely.”

Ordinarily, I would have rolled my eyes in irritation at a comment like that. But if we were still in an abduction fantasy here, it was arousing. I ducked my head in apology. “Please?”

“You’re really digging this, aren’t you?” He looked impressed with my depravity. “So how far you want me to take it? There’s a half can of week-old Pitt I left on my shelf. Or I can be a good guy and get you a fresh glass of water.” He winked.

My mouth wanted the water. My baser instincts wanted him to make me drink the old soda. I had issues. “I guess it depends on what you’re planning to do with me, now that you’ve got me here.”

He gave that consideration. “Wanna bang and watch a movie?”

I did. But... “You’re not going to torture me until I give you information?”

“ _Torture_ you?”

“Just a little.” My lip curled up a tiny bit with desire. “I mean, you went through all the trouble of abducting me at knifepoint and throwing me in a car blindfolded. I figure you must want to know where that money is.”

“Money?” His face lit up for a split-second before he realized I wasn’t serious.

I nodded seriously, widening my eyes. “But I’ll never tell you.”

Apparently this angle made the fantasy impossible for him to resist. “Sure you will. You just need a little…persuading.”

I lifted my chin defiantly. “Do your worst!” Damn it though, my mouth was still _so_ dry.

“Pretty cocky, aren’t you.” Stan ran a finger along my jaw. I shivered pleasantly. “I’ll take you don’t a few pegs.” He stopped. “Hey Teegs…what _is_ my worst?”

I couldn’t help smiling. The fact that none of this seemed to come naturally to him was very endearing. “You need to tie my wrists to something, obviously. So I have to stand up.” I felt my smile take on a dark edge. “Probably strip me down to my underwear, too. Or worse. You _do_ want that money, right?”

“And you’re gonna get it for me.” He balled his fist up experimentally. I drew in a deep, slow breath of anticipation. Stan moved so quickly that he hand was around my throat before I had a chance to flinch. He didn’t squeeze hard enough to cut off my air, but attempts to swallow were painful and difficult. “Up,” he ordered, voice harsh and leaving no room for protest. I pushed with my hands and scrabbled with my feet, trying to lift myself into a sitting position so that I didn’t choke. With his dubious help, I did make it to my feet. It was hard to stand with my ankles bound together, but not impossible.

Not that I was standing there for more than a second. No sooner did I make it onto my feet than he scooped me off them, carrying me over to the far side of the room where a punching bag was affixed to the ceiling. He set me on my feet right in front of it, then spun me around fast enough I lost my balance and only remained standing because he grabbed my upper arm to steady me. A few quick, confident motions later, and my wrists were cuffed at the top of the punching bag above my head, and not behind my back. The bag itself was a weight between my shoulder blades, pushing against me just enough to be uncomfortable.

Stan tugged at my wrists, making sure they were secure and I wasn’t going anywhere. I looked at him like he was some sort of sex god, beside myself to see what he was going to do next. I’d suggested he undress me, after all.

He took my chin in his hand, moving my head back and forth, and smiled in apparent satisfaction. “Not going anywhere now,” he observed, and knelt to untie the rope at my feet. I struggled experimentally, but unless I was wiggling to put all my weight on the handcuffs to lift both legs, I couldn’t do much. Nice.

Once my legs were untied I _could_ try to kick at him, but he stepped quickly out of the way and moved behind me instead. From there, I could only kick backward as high as my knee, and without shoes it didn’t have a lot of effect. He easily pulled my shirt up so that it covered my head and arms but exposed my bra and stomach. I really was trapped, mostly blinded again…and so desperately turned on that I found it challenging not to groan in anticipation as he pulled my hips flat against him. He was just doing it to hold me still as he reached around the front of my waist to unfasten my jeans, but it also alerted me to the fact that he was enjoying himself a little bit here, too. Well, good. I wanted him to. I wriggled my hips, rubbing against him as he pulled down the zipper, and got a decidedly positive response.

He took his time slowly removing my jeans, sliding them down and then tugging them off one foot at a time so that the cuffs didn’t bite into my wrists any more than they had to. Not something a real kidnapper would have been thoughtful enough to do, but I was more than willing to suspend a little disbelief.

I couldn’t see anything but shadow through my shirt, but I felt it when he moved close to me again. I held my breath. Then his hands were at the sides of my neck, not grabbing my throat but tugging the collar slowly upward until my eyes and nose were still covered by my mouth was exposed. “I wanna be able to hear you when you decide to talk,” he said—but he was close enough that I could feel his breath on my neck. I shivered, and my breath came in uneven gasps. I wanted him to slide his hand down the front of my panties and feel the effect he was having on me right now. But that would sabotage the fantasy we had going here, and I was enjoying it too much to do that.

“I already told you I won’t talk,” I said, pleased by the tremble I heard in my voice.

His hand slipped down the front of my bra, squeezing harder than usual. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

I whimpered and turned my head to and fro. At this rate, I was going to climax before he raised a hand against me. My knees were shaking.

“Too much?” Stan asked. I could tell he was trying to sound rough still, like he didn’t care unless I was going to divulge information, but I could still hear the concern beneath it.

“You _wish_ it was that easy to break me,” I sneered, debating the merits of spitting at him. It felt right for the scenario. But I didn’t want to risk actually offending him, either.

“You want me to _break_ you?” he whispered dangerously by my ear. He removed his hand from my breast, but immediately grabbed my butt instead, pulling my crotch right up against his. Oh fuck. I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it. I groaned, and my body struggled to move closer. I couldn’t do _anything_ to him like this. He could retreat a few steps and just leave me fighting this overwhelming desire, if that was what he wanted.

“Hit me,” I whispered back. He couldn’t see the wildness I was sure was in my eyes, but my voice was raw with it.

“Holy shit, Teegs,” Stan said in his normal voice, taking a step back.

I whimpered in protest at the loss of contact. “Hit me,” I repeated, my voice more a whine this time.

“I can’t _hit_ you!” he protested, sounding upset.

“Like hell you can’t,” I spat back, baring my teeth. “You’ve been dating me what, five months? And you’ve never asked if there was anything special _I_ was into. Not that I’m complaining, because most of the time I’m very happy with what I get. But if you _had_ asked, I would have said _this_.”

“You want me to hit you,” he repeated uncertainly.

“Yes!” I was nearly panting, though whether it was from frustration or expectation I couldn’t say. “Yes, yes, I want that. _Hurt_ me. Do it! Otherwise I’ll never tell you where th—”

His fist connected with my side, just beneath the ribs. It didn’t literally knock all the wind out of me, but I sure did exhale all the breath I was using to speak. My body naturally tried to cringe away from the blow, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. Another blow caught me on the other side, harder, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the blossoming pain. He caught me again, this time just above the elbow, and my arm went numb to my shoulder.

Just as suddenly, it stopped. “Like that?” said Stan’s voice warily.

I didn’t trust myself to speak, but I nodded and persuaded my lips to form the word “More.”

His hand caught my cheek, snapping my head to the side. It was an open palm—again, not the sort of consideration I’d expect if this was real, but I was pretty sure if he’d hit me with a closed fist he could have broken my jaw. As it was, my lip stung sharply and I tasted blood. He hit me in chest next, and I cried out faintly. But Stan was getting a feel for it now, and he didn’t stop.

A dozen more times, at least, he hit me. I couldn’t escape and I refused to ask him to quit. The feelings of helplessness and pain were spiraling, mating with each other and turning into something bigger. I was grunting and crying with each punch now, but the pain had started to feel _good_. My legs weren’t shaking because I hurt—or maybe they were, but that was the _point_.

His fist slammed into my upper arm again, and something swelled and broke lower inside me. “ _Yes!_ ” I shouted, throwing my head back repeatedly with no regard to the way it slammed against the punching bag. “ _Stan_ , yes!” My ability to articulate words dissolved, only returning when my body realized it needed more, more, more. “Now fuck me!”

Apparently he didn’t need telling twice. The ensuing pause lasted barely long enough for him to step out of his pants, and then he was grabbing and lifting me by the hips, pulling me up and shoving my panties to the side at the same time he pushed in.

I came again _immediately_ , but of course he kept moving and unless I wanted to verbally protest I was stuck. Not that I wanted to protest. Standing up, bruised, bleeding, cuffed to the ceiling sex is undoubtedly not for everyone. I was impressed Stan hadn’t stopped to uncuff me, because he was doing all the heavy lifting like this—both literally and figuratively. And this wasn’t the sort of thing you could do every day, that was for sure.

But for me? It was spectacular.

I came a third time when he did, and at last all the excess adrenaline left me. I felt sore, and exhausted, and amazing. Stan set me back on the floor quickly, which wasn’t a surprise the way his arms had been trembling a few seconds ago. “So I let you go now?” he asked, wiping a streak of blood or spit off my lip with his thumb. “I mean hey, I still want that money.”

Out of breath, I nonetheless managed a huge grin. “Yeah, you can let me down.”

“You’re a real psycho,” he said affectionately as he fiddled with the cuffs. A second later my hands were free. I pulled my shirt back to its proper position first, blinking. Then I looked at my wrists; the cuffs were still dangling from one, and there were very visible lines going around both. I grimaced, hoping I didn’t have to explain that to the kids. Or my split lip. Shit. I hadn’t even _thought_ about the excuses I’d have to make. Maybe it was a good thing I lacked any natural grace—I could probably just tell them these were the results of Stan trying to teach me to dance, and they’d buy it.

Stan was already back on his old bed, stretching out completely and looking beat. It wasn’t a large bed (another reason he’d always been the one to sleepover at my place), but I squeezed in next to him anyway. First I kissed his shoulder, then his chest, then full on his mouth. It hurt where my lip had split, but right now that made it better. We kissed for so long I wondered if we were going to wind up trying for another round, but then he lay back and I snuggled against him instead. “Thanks,” I said, resting my hand on his chest. “I. Um.” I started to laugh at myself. “Sorry if I got a little, um…?”

“Pushy?” I glanced up at him, worried, but he was smiling. “You really _liked_ that?”

I nodded rapidly. “I hope you didn’t do too much, though. I think I owe you massages for the rest of the week.”

He chuckled. “That’s assuming your arms are gonna work for the rest of the week.”

I blushed. “I think I can manage. You did a good job of hurting me without breaking anything. Am I going to be black and blue tomorrow?”

“Probably. Just make up something good, okay? Can’t have the whole town thinking I beat you.”

I kissed his shoulder again. “But you did beat me,” I smiled.

“Yeah yeah yeah.” He sighed, but sounded amused. “And just why did it take you five months to tell me about that kink?”

“It’s not the easiest thing to just bring up,” I pointed out. “Damn though, you were amazing at it.”

“Yeah?” His face lit up at the compliment. It was so sweet.

“Yeah,” I agreed with vehemence. “You are so amazing and so incredible and so…” I tried to think of another word.

“Go on,” Stan encouraged me with a smirk. “I want to hear how great I am.”

“ _So_ great,” I said. “And sexy and strong and thoughtful and wonderful.”

“Don’t forget charming.”

I laughed. “And most definitely charming. Best kidnapping ever. I give you ten out of ten blindfolds.”

*

“Hey Stan,” Nicky said at dinner about a week later while the rest of us were busy chewing. “Do you know Gideon Gleeful?”

“I know he’s terrible,” Stan answered without hesitation. “Or at least, he was a couple years ago. Haven’t seen him much since he got out of jail.”

_“Jail?_ ” cut in Horace, sounding horrified.

I was concerned by this conversation, too, but tried not to show it. Not everyone who’d spent time in jail was a lost cause, after all. Given _Stan_ had seen the inside a few times, I didn’t want to sound like I was judging. “How do _you_ know him?” I asked Nicky instead.

“He’s a seventh-grader.” Nicky stabbed his lasagna with his fork as if he were imagining someone’s face. “He’s a total dick munch.”

I shot him an angry look for his choice of insults, and Dave looked confused. But Horace nodded in defiant agreement and Stan outright laughed. “That’s a good one, kid! He sure is.”

It was there and gone so fast I almost missed it, but Nicky flashed him a grin.

“So you mean juvey, right?” Dave asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “If he’s at the middle school, he’s just a kid. He wouldn’t have been in _jail_.”

I looked to Stan for confirmation of this. He shook his head. “Blubbs and Durland do school outreach, right? The cops?”

Nicky nodded. Dave rolled his eyes. “I’ve met them, too. They’re…not very competent.”

Stan nodded appreciatively. “Which is a good thing, cause it means you can get away with a lot.” He winked at me. I tactfully took a bite of melted cheese. “Or in Gideon’s case, be a giant pain in everyone’s ass. They finally arrested him when we proved he was scamming the whole town with his _telepathy_ schtick.” Still holding his fork, he did finger quotes in the air. “And I know they locked him up for a while, but then there was that whole _apocalypse_ thing, and no bothered to stick him back in there afterward.”

“Oh _that_ kid!” Dave exclaimed in sudden disgust. “Mabel told me about him last summer! She said he was a total creep.”

“Yep, that’s him!” Stan took a bite of his food with obvious enjoyment. “So what’s he done to get your goat?” he asked Nicky, swallowing hurriedly.

Nicky shrugged angrily. “He’s just _annoying_. He should be an even bigger loser than me, but instead people find him— _cute_ or something, I don’t know.”

“People?” I asked carefully.

Nicky snarled and threw down his fork. “Yeah, _people_! Everyone, okay? Everyone thinks he’s cool and thinks I suck! And he’s this fat little southern dick munch with dumb hair and greasy skin! What’s so great about _that_?” He pushed back his chair and stormed away from the table. Horace cast us an apologetic glance and followed timidly in his wake.

“What crawled up _his_ butt?” Dave asked, sparing one concerned glance after his brother before returning to his food.

“Gideon,” Stan said at once. “He used to make me feel like that, too. And Dipper isn’t his biggest fan, either—hey, you think I should tell him that? Have him call up Dipper and get it off his chest?”

I smiled warmly at him. “That’s a great idea. But…Dave, you really don’t have any insight on this? Is Gideon bullying him, do you think? Or do you think it’s…well…a girl?”

Dave stopped chewing to stare at me blankly. “A girl?” Then what I was getting at dawned on him. “Ohhhh. You think he’s into a girl and she likes Gideon better?”

“That was the impression I got,” I nodded. “Stan?”

He looked up from shoveling more pasta into his mouth. “Huh?”

I fought against a sigh. “You actually _knew_ this Gideon kid. Do you think it’s possible Nicky’s just pissed because some girl likes him better? Or is it more likely he’s actually being awful to him?”

Stan chewed thoughtfully. “He did have most of the town wrapped around his finger for a while. But that was adults thinking he was cute, not _girls_ thinking he was cute!” He snorted in amusement at the thought. “Not unless he’s changed a _lot_.”

Darn. I’d been hoping it had just been jealousy over a girl. “And you don’t know anything about him, Dave?”

“Just that Mabel said he was gross.”

“And Nicky hasn’t said anything to you? About any troubles at school or anything?”

He rolled his eyes. “Mom, he’s turning thirteen. Everything’s drama with him.” Right, and boys who were turning sixteen were really any better? I held my tongue. “He doesn’t talk to me lately anyway. Ask Horace.”

Was there a trace of resentment there? With a three-year gap and different interests, my boys had never been especially close, but they weren’t _distant_ , either.

I turned back to Stan. “Okay, so what should I do? Talk to the school?” That would be hard, if Nicky wasn’t willing to give me any specific examples of how Gideon had wronged him besides being more popular—and to be fair, Nicky was never _going_ to be Mr. Popularity. He had glasses and braces; he loved DD&MD, reading, and video games; and he’d never _cared_ about impressing strangers. He’d always been happy just being himself. Whatever Gideon was doing, I hated that it was getting under my son’s skin this way.

“Let me talk to him,” Stan suggested, pushing back his chair and setting his fork on an empty plate. “He doesn’t care what I think anyhow, so maybe he’ll actually tell me something.”

I shot a quick glance at Dave, but either he agreed this was a good idea or didn’t object to Stan acting parental to someone besides himself. “It’s worth a try,” I agreed nervously. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Gives me an excuse to use some more good swears to describe Gideon.” He winked at me.

As soon as he was gone, I pressed Dave. “You don’t think he’ll bridle at Stan trying to help him?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know _what’s_ going to set him off these days.”

I nodded, and actually took a bite out of my salad. “Is everything okay between you two, though? I didn’t know he’d stopped confiding in you.”

Dave stayed determinedly focused on his food. “Yeah. He’s just been weird ever since he…ever since I got a boyfriend.” I watched him hard, trying to decide whether that pause and switch was anything I should be concerned about. “And he likes Horace better,” he added hurriedly.

“Well, Horace can’t spend all his free time out with Thompson or at his friends’ houses,” I pointed out with a smile. “It’s easier to bond with someone who’s there all the time.”

“Excuse me for having a life,” he sneered angrily.

I backed off immediately. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m _glad_ you have a life, I’m so glad to see you doing well here. I’m worried about _Nicky_ , okay?”

He looked up from his lasagna, actually meeting my eyes apologetically. “Okay. You want me to talk to him, too?”

“Just let him know you’re there if he needs you,” I smiled, relieved.

He smiled back. “I can do that. You make sure Stan doesn’t do anything dumb like turn up at the middle school and punch out a seventh grader.”

“He’d never do that!” I laughed uneasily.

Dave scraped the last of the sauce off his plate.

*

Stan was annoyingly reluctant to fill me in on his conversation with Nicky. I knew that they’d been sequestered in his room for some time, and that Nick had video chatted with both Dipper and Mabel afterward. I deduced that it had gone well. I knew that Horace was now avoiding me, probably because he didn’t want to get cornered into answering any questions. I knew that Stan had come home early on at least one occasion to help Nicky with something after school. Beyond that…?

I had to trust that those were all good signs. If I tried to interfere now, it would just sabotage whatever fragile bond it was they were building. At least Dave seemed more relaxed. And I had to admit, now that the dust had settled, _I_ was more relaxed. The move had been really stressful, and I’d been so worried about getting everyone _else_ adjusted and settled that it had taken a while to get _myself_ there.

Telling Stan to move in may have been a bit premature from a relationship standpoint, which was why I’d been prepared to hold out a lot longer on making that sort of jump. But from a practical standpoint, it made things so much easier I wished I’d taken the plunge from the get-go. I no longer had to set aside time to spend with him, or make sure I expended enough energy to be a “good girlfriend” when he was around. Maybe it wasn’t very romantic, but it was a lot less complicated. And it was still _fun_. Fun was a lot more important to me than romance.

So if you ignored my low job satisfaction and Nicky’s mysterious conflicts, everything was going great. I mean yeah, my boyfriend had moved in with me without exactly ever saying he loved me, my house was haunted by an adorable preteen from the early 1900’s, and I had to take a pill every week so that I glowed in the dark instead of spontaneously combusting. But that had gone from being upsetting to being a part of my daily life, so I was standing by my statement about everything going great.

Or at least, I was until November 18th rolled around. We were just sitting down to dinner when we heard Stan’s phone ringing from the living room. Naturally he went to get it, and wandered back into the dining area as he answered. “How’s it going, genius?” Ah, it was Ford. I wondered why he was calling right at dinner time; with the except of nights with tennis matches, our schedule had gotten predictable. Ford had been the one to point it out, and adjust his regular calls to Stan as a result. Also, they’d just talked last night, and once or twice a week seemed to be the norm. I motioned the kids to go ahead and start eating, but I sat and listened to Stan with curiosity.

My instincts were right on the money. Nicky’s first bite hadn’t even made it to his mouth when Stan’s eyebrows pulled down and his face went unnaturally still. “Yeah,” he said hollowly, pulling out his chair and sinking into it. “Yeah.” There was a pause; I wished I could hear what Ford was saying. “Do they know what happened?” Another pause. I didn’t like the sound of this at all, and rested my hand on top of his. “Oh.” His face had drained of all its usual color, making the red of his nose stand out like Santa Claus. “When are you going?” I wrapped my fingers around his and squeezed. He gripped them tightly. “You need me there?” Pause. “I _know_ , but I’m still gonna _be_ there!” Even the boys were watching him nervously. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Keep me in the know.” One more pause. “Bye.”

He ended the call and stared blankly at the phone in his hand for a long second. I ran my thumb soothingly over his fingers and waited.

Stan shook his head, dropped the phone onto the table, and leaned forward to put his head in his hands, shaking me off in the process.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dave watching nervously as he took a bite of casserole. “Stan?” I asked tentatively when the silence got to be too much. “Honey? What happened?”

“I, uh…” He dropped his hands and looked at me with a thousand-yard stare. “I gotta go to Jersey for the weekend.”

I didn’t think he could safely do that without risking arrest for things he’d done decades ago, but now didn’t feel like the time to bring that up. “Why?” I asked instead.

“That was Ford.”

I nodded supportively. “Yeah, I figured that out. I thought he was in Maryland.”

“He is.” There was a long silence as he got lost in his own thoughts. Then he said, “Gotta go to my dad’s funeral.”

I wish I could have cultivated a better response to that news, but I reacted on instinct. My head jerked back, my brows came down, and my lip curled back in confusion. “You told me your dad was _dead_!”

“He is,” Stan said, his voice distant.

“Before now,” I said, getting myself rapidly back under control. “You told me your whole family was dead, Stan.”

He blinked at me, and his gaze became a little more focused, like he was actually seeing all of us again. “No I didn’t. I implied it.” He blinked again, and shook his head. “I said Ford and the kids were my only family, right?” I nodded, glad he was starting to communicate again. “They are. Dad disowned me when I was seventeen. And the only time he’s talked to me since then, he thought I was Ford.”

I’d known his father had been a cold man who never gave him a chance to explain or redeem himself after a mistake. I knew he’d kicked him out when he was barely an adult. And those things hurt me to think about. But the rest of this was news to me—as was the fact that he’d apparently still been alive up until very recently. “I’m sorry,” I said gently. It didn’t really matter if he thought I was talking about his dad’s life, or his death.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care, even though he quite clearly did. “Maybe he was a jerk, but I can’t exactly skip out on his funeral.”

He _could_ , as far as I was concerned. If the asshole hadn’t been interested in having a relationship with his son while he was alive, serve him right to have no one at his funeral. But Stan wouldn’t see it that way. Even if he didn’t count his dad as real family anymore, he’d view this as some sort of duty, because on some level he still cared. And more importantly, Ford was going. There was no way Stan was going to leave his twin brother to handle this alone.

“What happened?” asked Nicky fearfully. “Was he just…old?”

Stan half-smiled at him. He even laughed, though there wasn’t much humor to the sound. “Yeah, he was old. He would have been…” He paused to do mental math. “Ninety-eight this year, I think. But Ford said he fell. I don’t have all the details yet.” To my utter shock, he scooted his chair forward and started attacking his dinner. “Hey, ninety-eight’s not bad,” he commented while chewing. “Hope _I_ make it that long.”

I had no idea what to say to make this better. “When’s the funeral?” I’d lost my appetite, but since everyone else was eating I made myself take another bite, too.

“Dunno yet. Ford’s driving in tomorrow to take care of the details.” He snorted angrily. “If the old man had anything _left_ , his is the only name that’d be in the will anyway.”

“To be fair, everyone thought you died thirty years ago,” I pointed out gently. He was entitled to his bitterness. He had no obligation to be fair. But still—if he hadn’t faked his own death back then, maybe his family would eventually have come around and tried to make amends.

Stan shook his head, eyes hardening. “You didn’t know him. He wouldn’t have left me anything, anyway.”

I shrugged, not willing to press the issue when he was grieving and angry. And he was probably _right_ , sadly. Then again, Ford had written him off at the same time as their parents, and _he’d_ eventually seen the error in that. Which raised another question in my mind. “Has Ford seen him at all? Since he moved out there?”

“Yeah.” He’d stopped eating and was looking positively stormy now. “He’s gone out there a few times. You believe the old man’s so stubborn he’s still living in the house? He should’ve gone to a home after Mom died but I guess he wouldn’t hear of it. Too cheap, that’s why.”

Well, that certainly explained how he’d managed to fall. A ninety-eight year old widower living alone? The only surprising part there was that it hadn’t happened sooner. “What about your other brother?” I asked. I knew he and Ford were Mabel and Dipper’s great-uncles (or “grunkles,” as they insisted on saying), and that their grandfather was his older brother. I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything about him, though. Had Stan even mentioned him more than once?

“Sherman?” He shook his head, but the thought seemed to make him depressed instead of angrier. That was…good? “Cancer got him twelve years back.” He disconsolately took a few more bites. “I should’ve gone to his funeral.” He sighed, and poked at his food. “Always wished I had.” He brightened slightly. “But after that, it was easier to get to know his grandkids.”

I hadn’t even thought about that. After Ford disappeared, Stan had taken over his twin’s identity. That worked fine for anyone who hadn’t known the two of them as kids; they could do passable impressions of each other, and their faces were enough alike, but talking to them for any length of time would display their vastly different personalities. If Stan hadn’t trusted his parents or Sherman with the secret that he was really Stanley, he would have wanted to avoid them like the plague. And since he’d spent all that time feeling responsible for Ford’s disappearance, he probably wouldn’t have been willing to disclose the truth even _if_ he’d trusted them.

So he’d missed having a relationship with his nephew as a kid, and he’d missed Sherman’s funeral. It was only once the older brother who’d know him at once was buried that he’d had a chance to get to know his extended family. No wonder he cared so much about the twins. My poor Stan.

“Do you want me to come?” I blurted out suddenly, making the offer before I had a chance to think better of it.

He looked up from poking at his food, and the expression on his face…it was hard to describe. It was like…a man who’d spent years limping around and congratulating himself for how quick and able he’d gotten, and then someone offered him a cane out of the blue. Someone who was out of their depth and floating on their back because they were too tired to swim, only to have someone throw them a life preserver. Opening a present at Christmas and being confused and disappointed to find only socks, until you remembered all your favorite socks were worn through.

That was how he was looking at me.

I smiled, put my hand on my arm, and inclined my head as a way of reaffirming the offer.

“Nah, I’m fine,” he said, getting up from the table and leaving the room.

I winced, but stayed in my seat. He probably just needed some time to himself to truly process the news. Our questions and sympathy weren’t what he needed right now.

Or else trying to insert myself in a family thing as intensely personal as this had been a huge misstep that I was going to regret.

I poked at my own dinner as the stairs creaked; he must be headed upstairs. I forced a terrible excuse for a smile and looked at my boys.

Dave coughed. “Well that was awkward.”

Nicky giggled nervously.

“He seems to be taking it well,” Horace said optimistically.

“They weren’t exactly close,” I reminded him.

“Still.” He nodded sagely. “Death can be challenging.”

Despite the troubled atmosphere, hearing that from him made me smile. “I know it can.”

“You should go talk to him,” Nicky said. “I mean, we’re okay. I don’t know anything about his dad, so I can’t really be _sad_. I just feel bad for him.”

I sighed. “Me too. I just wish I knew the right thing to say.”

Dave looked at me like I was dumb. “It doesn’t matter what you say, Mom. You _know_ that. You just have to be there.”

“It was a little different with us,” I smiled wryly. When their father had died, we’d _all_ been grieving. With Stan’s dad, I’d happily have spit on his grave if I didn’t think it would more harm than good.

“So? It’s still good advice.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, nodding slowly. I cared about Stan. Yeah, I might say the wrong thing. But at least he’d know it was coming from a good place. Grief isolated you, and at the end of the day I was going to be either outside its circle, or inside. “How would you guys feel, if he does want me to go with him?”

“Would we have to come?” Dave asked carefully.

“No,” I started to say, which apparently triggered a panic in Nicky.

“You can’t leave us home _alone_ all weekend,” he blurted out, pitch rising in concern at the idea.

“I wasn’t going to,” I said calmly, stopping him in his tracks.

Dave rolled his eyes. “Way to flip out. What, you think some big bad monster is going to turn up at the door if Mom’s not home?”

Nicky leveled a glare at him. “It’s not impossible! But I was actually more worried about what _you’d_ do if Mom left us alone.”

“What?” Dave demanded angrily. The look of distress that flickered over his face was very interesting.

I turned my attention back to Nicky. “Why? You don’t trust Dave to keep the place from burning down?”

“No,” Nicky scowled. “He’ll be too busy having s—”

“Some of my friends?” cut in Dave loudly. “Is that what you’re worried about, me having some of my _friends_ over?” Now they were _both_ glaring at each other, and my mom senses were starting to tingle. I didn’t think Nicky had been about to say _some friends_ , and if I was right a lot of things made a lot more sense.

“Stop it!” Horace looked from one to the other and then fretfully toward me, wringing his translucent hands. “You promised, Nicky!”

Yup. I drummed my fingers on the table. Why did we have to have this fight right now? I wanted to go make lame attempts to comfort Stan, not deal with teenage drama. But I’d been their mother a lot longer than I’d been his girlfriend, and this blow-up was weeks in the making.

“What exactly did you promise, Nicky?” I asked as mildly as I could. All three of them looked at me, and all three of them looked angry and cornered. I sighed. “Would you please just tell me? I don’t like secrets, and I don’t like seeing you at odds. What’s going on?”

Nicky looked away. Dave set his teeth defiantly. Horace looked like he was on the verge of spilling everything. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to _guess_ ,” I said, a little less mildly. “You guys were all being so kind and helpful a minute ago. Don’t make me start guessing what sort of horrible things you’re holding over each other.”

Dave decided that this critical juncture was an excellent time to roll his eyes again. “Jeez, you don’t have to jump to conclusions. It’s nothing _bad_. Robbie was just being a jerk to Nicky a while back, and I had to stand up for him. It’s no big deal. I won’t have him over while you’re gone, okay?”

I could have screamed in frustration. All of this was a moot point anyway, because I had no intention of leaving them home alone and had never said I _did_. We hadn’t even established that I was _going_ anywhere, because I still needed to go talk to _Stan._ “That is a giant load of crap. When has Robbie _ever_ been over here? And I’m supposed to believe you’d stand up to him on behalf on _Nicky_ , when you’ve told me you don’t know what to do when they’re jerks to _Thompson_?”

“They’re Thompson’s friends,” he muttered, looking sullen. “That’s the difference.”

We sat in silence for a minute. I swear I could hear the seconds ticking away. “So Nicky,” I eventually said with forced calm, “Did Dave buy you that new game to bribe you into silence? Is _that_ how you had the money for it last month?”

He looked guilty enough that he didn’t even need to answer. I nodded, suspicions confirmed. I was relieved, though I wasn’t going to let _them_ know that. I didn’t approve of bribery, but it was a lot better than some of the explanations I’d been coming up with for that game’s appearance.

“And you knew.” I turned on Horace next, because he was the youngest, the most eager to please, the weakest link. I wasn’t going to bully him, but I could certainly express my disappointment. He stared shamefacedly at the floor, his pearly white color fading to near invisibility. “I wish you’d been honest with me,” I told him. “I know you know better.” I paused. “Do you even know what secret Nicky was supposed to be keeping in exchange?”

He flickered in and out of visibility, and I knew he was torn. He didn’t want to sell out either of his brothers. But he also couldn’t tell me a bald-faced lie when I already had his number. Damn it. I was too weak. I couldn’t force him into that choice. I sighed a third time, loudly, and shook my head.

I focused on Dave, silently lifting my eyebrows, waiting. “It was nothing _bad_!” he exclaimed again, looking like he might start crying. “We were just _kissing_! He should have knocked anyway! It’s not _my_ fault he just walked into my room, is it?”

I didn’t buy the _just kissing_ line for a minute. Nicky had seen people kissing plenty of times in his life, and he knew Dave had a fairly serious boyfriend. Seeing them kissing wouldn’t have caused this level of scandal. Maybe it wasn’t _sex_ , but it had definitely been more than kissing. However, I had no desire to traumatize him by forcing him to discuss the details with me right now, nor did I want to subject the younger ones to that conversation.

And to give them credit, not a single one of them had fled the table so far.

I let my brows relax into a more normal expression, and gave Dave a small, reassuring smile. “Okay,” I told him, accepting his story for now. “I get it, I’m not mad.” They’d caught me and Stan doing some pretty serious kissing once or twice, after all. “I wish you’d just told me from the get-go instead of bribing Nicky and letting it turn into some huge cover-up. You’re allowed to kiss your boyfriend! I am _fine_ with you kissing your boyfriend. I’m _not_ fine with you making Nicky and Horace _lie_ about it.”

Dave nodded and turned his head, dabbing at his eyes with the edge of his hand. I turned my attention to the other two, shaking my head. “I’m not impressed with either of you, either. You _should_ have knocked on his door, Nicky. And if you threatened to talk about what you saw, that was pretty low.”

“He _offered_ to buy me the game!” Nicky wailed.

“Then you should have turned him down as soon as you understood he was trying to buy you off,” I said levelly. “If he wants to be a nice big brother, that’s wonderful, but you don’t take bribes from family.”

I stood up. “I love you guys. I’m very relieved to finally know what the hell’s going on. Now please, just…be kind to each other in the future, can’t you?” I started to head toward the stairs, but stopped and turned back. “Oh, and _if_ I go anywhere this weekend, I will be making arrangements for you to stay with friends that I trust. Got it?”

The sound of three boys grumbling assent convinced me that I was doing an adequate job as a parent. Good. Now I just needed to go do a more than adequate job as a girlfriend.

The stairs squeaked on my ascent to the second floor, giving Stan advance warning of my arrival. I didn’t hear any movement in the bedroom, though, and the door was only partially shut. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, so still that for a second I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But the door squeaked when I pushed it open all the way, and he opened his eyes.

“How you doing?” I asked, crossing to sit next to him on the mattress.

He shrugged, and I uncertainly reached out to put a hand on his cheek. His whiskers were in danger of becoming a beard if he didn’t shave soon—he always let it go too long. I smiled fondly. He stubbornly continued not saying anything, but I felt him relax fractionally. I stretched myself out so that I was lying next to him instead, and gave him a hard sideways hug. “Penny for your thoughts?” His face tipped toward me slightly. “How about a dollar?” I tried again, attempting to make him smile. “Andrew Jackson for your thoughts?”

It didn’t make him smile, but he did snort through his nose. “I had to go to Mom’s funeral disguised as Ford,” he muttered. “I wore his gloves and tried not to talk too much. Did my best impression of him when I did. It was crap. Mom would’ve seen through it in ten seconds flat.” He shook his head bitterly. “Dad didn’t notice a thing.”

“Did you hate him?” I asked.

He waited what felt like a long time before answering. “I dunno.” He turned his head toward me a little more. “You believe that? I don’t even know if I hate him or not. That’s why I don’t wanna go.”

“I don’t follow,” I admitted unhappily.

“Cause if I go back there again, what if I decide I _don’t_?”

He was sounding very introspective, but from everything he’d told me before this I had the impression it was a pretty open and shut case. Then again, he’d also given me the impression before that his dad had died years ago. “He kicked you out of your home and your own family when you were practically still a kid,” I reminded him. “And he never showed any regret about it. I think you’re clear to hate him, honey.”

“He made me take boxing lessons when I was a kid. I hated it, but he’s the reason I know how to fight. Without that, I dunno where I’d be. I didn’t have much going for me before then.”

I was unimpressed with that statement and made no attempt to hide my feelings. “I bet you had plenty going for you before then. If he made you believe you didn’t, then I hate him twice as much.”

“ _You_ hate him?” he asked in surprise. “You didn’t even know him.”

“If he’s the kind of guy that throws a teenager out on his ear for one screw up, he’s the kind of guy I can hate with no qualms,” I answered flatly. “Dave’s turning sixteen after Thanksgiving. You were, what, seventeen?” He nodded reluctantly. A difference of a few years was not much. I tried to imagine Stan at the age Dave was now, full of hormones and stupid drama and ridiculous dreams. Yes, teenagers were a giant pain in the ass. I wanted to throttle mine sometimes. But they needed love and support, and thinking about him not getting that made me seethe. “Do you think there’s _anything_ my kids could do that would make me disown them?”

“No,” Stan said at once. “Course not.”

“Exactly,” I said, case made. “Fuck your asshole dad.”

He smiled faintly at that. “Why’d you want to come to his funeral, then? So you can spit on his grave?”

“Maybe.” I allowed myself the tiniest of smirks. “Does that make you want to bring me along more, or less?”

His smile grew a little bit, and he actually hugged me back for the first time since I’d entered the room. “More! Ford wouldn’t approve, though.”

“What, of me coming along, or of me spitting on your father’s grave?”

He laughed. It was very slight, but he laughed. “Definitely the spitting. He was never a big fan of body functions.”

I toyed with the gold chain he always wore around his neck. It was warm, heavy, and reassuring. “How’s he coping?”

“Not great. I mean he’s Ford, you know? He’ll hold it together till the bitter end, nothing’s gonna break him. But he sounded…strained. I don’t think he figured he’d be the one to have to deal with sorta thing. Should have been Shermie. He’s the one who stayed in Jersey. They wrote me off, and Ford was never great with that emotion stuff.” He sighed heavily.

“Is that why you’re really going? Even if you don’t want to?” My fingers kept mindlessly playing with his chain, but my eyes were locked on his face.

Stan nodded, once. “I gotta be there to help him. Get him through it. That’s what family does.”

“And you don’t want me there because I’m not family?” I asked, trying to make my voice reflect that I wasn’t insulted by the idea. “Would I just get in the way?”

He shrugged. “You didn’t know him.”

“No, but I know _you_. And I know Ford. And I know how draining it can be to say goodbye to someone.” I smiled sadly. “So I want to help.”

“I don’t need help.” I didn’t verbally call him on that obvious lie, but my eyes must have spoken pretty loudly because he flinched. “What? I don’t!”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You might as well have,” he said grumpily. “I can handle this just fine on my own, trust me.”

“I know you can,” I said soothingly, moving my fingers from the chain to his chest. “But do you _want_ me there?”

He got that look again, like the man who’d gotten so used to his limp he didn’t know what to do with a cane. “It’s a family thing.” He shook his head. “I don’t need help.”

“Honey.” I moved my hand again, from his chest to his cheek. “I’m not saying you’re weak. I’m just saying I want to be there to help. Do you _want_ me there?”

His jaw twitched—I could feel him clenching his teeth. “No. You’d just be one more thing to deal with.”

Ouch. I should have let it go right there, maybe. And if I’d believed him, I certainly would have. I let my hand drift back to his chest, watching my fingers swirl through all the gray hairs there. “I get it,” I said apologetically. “You don’t like feeling vulnerable.”

He snorted defensively. “I got no problem feeling vulnerable.”

Good grief, Stan. I raised my eyes back to his face, and this time I hoped he could see _exactly_ what they were saying. “Bullshit, no one likes it! It’s scary! Admitting you need someone else _sucks_. Why do you think I’ve never told you I love you?”

“I…cause you…you don’t…love me?” His face screwed up in naked confusion that triggered a fresh rush of emotion in me. This was something we’d avoided _saying_ , but it wasn’t supposed to be a fucking _surprise_!

“Are you kidding?” I demanded, and heard my voice crack. The tears leaking out the corners of my eyes weren’t far behind, but I held his gaze anyway. “I love you like crazy!” Yep, there were the tears. My voice wobbled. “How can you not know I love you?” He didn’t say anything, but I had part of the answer already: because I’d never told him. “I love you,” I repeated. “I’ve just been terrified to _say_ it, because once you put yourself out there like that, there’s no going back.”

Stan brought his hand up to my face, slowly smearing one of my tears with his thumb. He looked less confused now, which I liked, but the expression still hadn’t left his face completely. I lifted my palm to wipe away the tears on my other cheek, and when I’d done that I put my hand on top of his. I felt stupid for crying, but now that I’d taken the jump I had no regrets about saying the words. They were true, weren’t they?

His eyes softened from confusion to tenderness, and he left our hands together. “No one’s ever said that to me before,” he said quietly, and paused. “Like that, anyhow.”

That hurt to hear, so I started talking before I could start crying again. “There are more morons in the world than I realized, then.”

“Nah, it’s just cause I’m a jerk,” he smiled.

I kissed his smile. Something about this kiss reminded me of our first one, but it took me a while to pinpoint exactly what it was that drew that parallel in my mind. I kept kissing him, focusing most of my attention on that, while the back of my mind mulled things over and concluded it was the mix of tenderness, excitement, and vulnerability. Yes, vulnerability. The feeling I’d just been ragging on was now turning a perfectly normal kiss into something magical.

Because vulnerability is only scary when you’re trying to protect yourself. Once you give up and embrace it, you discover how much you were holding back—things you don’t have to hold back anymore.

I was straddling Stan, leaning over him with one knee on each side, when we stopped kissing for a minute. Despite all my attempts to channel my emotions into something he could feel and taste, they were still running high. I felt like I might burst into tears again at the slightest provocation, though at least at this point they’d be happy tears. I leaned my forehead against his; even though being that close made it impossible for him to see my smile, he could probably feel it. “I love you.” Repeating it felt good. I put my hand flat over his heart. “You. Stanley Pines. I love you.” I kissed him again, slowly. His hands, which hadn’t left my waist since our last kiss began, tightened and pulled me closer.

That kiss started deep and got deeper fast, progressing from a sweet and earnest _look, I love you_ to a less conservative _I want to get as close as humanly possible and_ show _you how much I love you_. As reluctant as I was to stop, one of us was either going to have to get up and close the door, or we’d have to back off altogether.

“You want me to get the door?” I whispered. Given he’d just gotten the news of his father’s death and I’d just dropped one of those big romantic bombshells on him, I didn’t want to make _assumptions_ that he wanted to have sex at 8:30 in the evening. But then again, he was the one who had just unclipped my bra.

My pausing to speak must have made him actually think, because he hesitated. “The boys are downstairs,” he stated, as if searching for confirmation. I nodded in agreement. “Awake.” Again, I nodded.

“If we’re really quiet, they’ll just assume we’re having a long, depressing talk.” I pressed my lips to his for half a second, then rolled off the bed toward the door. “Besides, I think they want to avoid me right now. I called them on some crap right before I came up here.” I shut the door as carefully as I could, making sure the latch caught. I almost hit the light switch, but realized if anyone came down the hallway the lack of light coming from under the door would be suspicious. Then I went back to the bed, pulling my shirt off over my head and shaking free of my bra as I walked, to pick up where we’d left off.

“You are such a fox,” he murmured, grabbing me as soon as I got close enough and moving me so that my chest was in his face. “I love it when you break your own rules.” His scratchy jaw rubbed against my breasts as he kissed the very edge of one nipple. I gasped very softly and arched like a bow. He brought his hands up to squeeze them closer together and repeated the motion. Nerves started firing, and I squirmed. He wet the tip of my breast with his tongue, then brushed his thumb back and forth over it.

Five months of sleeping with him meant he knew most of my weaknesses. My nipples could already have cut diamonds, and a few more seconds of this would have me begging to have him inside me. Which I’d already wanted—I’d been wet before I even got up to shut the door, so the extended foreplay wasn’t even technically necessary.

It was, however, very enjoyable.

When he stopped, I had enough presence of mind to go for my pants. As soon as I’d kicked them off, Stan was straddling me, cupping my face in both hands and kissing me with unrestrained enthusiasm. I loved the feeling of his weight against me, and slipped my hands around his back to tug him closer. “Stan,” I whispered urgently, tilting my hips to rub myself against him. He still had too many clothes on, damn it. I was naked and going crazy here, and he still had his stupid boxes and shirt on. I tried to push them down and out of the way while exploring the inside of his mouth with my tongue.

He decided to help me with that, which was good, but meant he had to stop touching me for a few precious seconds. I whined in the back of my throat, and tugged at his shirt. “I need you,” I panted as he pressed against the inside of my thigh. He leaned closer again, brushing my hair away from my neck and brushing his mouth against my throat. “I need you. Stan. Please. St—” I didn’t have to finish. He pushed in, and I had to press my face into his shoulder to mute the sharp exhalation of pleasure. “Yes,” I whispered, moving with him and holding him close. “Yes, yes, oh Stan.” His mouth found mine again, and nothing else mattered.

“I love you,” I breathed between kisses, instinct demanding I say it again. I didn’t know when I had ever felt this close to him emotionally _and_ physically, but the intensity of the feeling was so strong I had to give it voice. I wasn’t looking to hear him say it back, but it seemed so important to let him know.

In answer, his breathing became ragged and his pace spend up. The wonderful heat spreading inside me dominated my senses, but it was amplified by the sensations throughout the rest of my body. The coarse rub of his face against mine. The comforting squish of his stomach against my abdomen. The tightening of the muscles in his back under my fingers. The reassuring smell of sweat, desire, and that faint scent of the Mystery Shack (a mix of smoke, sawdust, and chemicals). The almost imperceptible grunts of effort and satisfaction he made as he moved.

Ecstasy unraveled in me, starting deep in my core and spiraling out to every extremity. Overwhelmed, my muscles constricted and threatened to lock up. Stan made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and I felt him tense all over, too. I persuaded my hips to roll back and forth a few more times, extending the euphoria for as long as I could. I was still shuddering when he relaxed, sinking onto me with a contented sigh.

I closed my eyes and lay there peacefully for a moment, enjoying the weight and the tickle of his breath. The physical intensity was gone, but the sense of emotional closeness remained fresh and strong. I nuzzled his cheek and moved my hands in nonsensical patterns slowly over his shoulders. It occurred to me that perhaps I should be upset he hadn’t yet voiced any declaration of love for _me_ , but I just couldn’t summon any unpleasant emotions right now. I hoped I’d get to hear it at some point, yeah, but his reaction when I’d confessed had been almost as good. He’d been happy. He’d been _happy_ , and we’d made love (referring to it as _sex_ this particular time felt dishonest), and he wasn’t showing any desire to move off me.

Tragically, I was going to have to ask him to move in a minute. He weighed more than me, and _I_ didn’t have muscles like he did. It was getting difficult to fill my lungs. I stayed quiet as long as possible, not wanting the closeness to end, but being able to breathe was important— _and_ the kids were still awake downstairs. I moved my hand from his back to his side, giving him a weak push. “Honey. We gotta get some clothes back on.”

“Right,” he muttered drowsily, and rolled sideways. I stayed next to him for one more moment, because side by side I was able to see his face. “That…was great,” he added when he noticed me watching him. I smiled, and he rolled onto his back and stretched. “Made me forget all about my dad for a minute there.”

“Only a minute?” I asked sadly as I searched for my panties at the foot of the bed.

“Maybe a couple,” he conceded. “Thanks.”

I found them and stepped into them. I’d have to put on a dry pair before bed, but I felt safer having something on now that I’d remembered my sons could knock at any minute. I found Stan’s boxers, too, and passed them to him. I also came around the side of the bed, leaning over to give him one more kiss. “My pleasure.” I stuck a foot through the leg of my jeans.

“So you really wanna come, huh?” Stan asked, making a small sound as he forced himself back into a sitting position.

I smirked, and lifted one eyebrow. “I just _did_.”

He grinned, and shot me with a finger gun. “I meant Jersey!”

“Yeah,” I said, pausing in refastening my bra to show him my answering grin. “I want to be there for you. But only if you want me there.”

“Might be nice.” He nodded thoughtfully—and whatever specific thoughts he was having, they brought a fresh smile to his face. “You’re paying for your own plane ticket, right?”

_This_ was the man I loved. I put my face in my hands, and shook my head. “Yes, Stan,” I said through a veil of fingers. “I’ll pay for my own plane ticket.”


	2. Him.

“Teagan.” Having just embraced his brother, Stanford Pines extended a six-fingered hand to me. I gripped it firmly, trying to encompass condolences and exhaustion in one handshake. “It’s good to see you again, though I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances.”

Ah, fuck it. I ditched his hand and gave him a quick, awkward hug. “You can’t help the circumstances, Ford. I’m glad to be here.” Yes, I sometimes resented him for his turbulent history with Stan, but it was hard to hate the man when confronted with him in person. He’d helped entertain Nicky and Dipper quite a bit last summer, he was unfailingly polite to me, and most importantly—Stan loved him.

Besides, right now he was a man was coping with the death of his father. Probably even mourning him. I doubted their dad had gone any easier on him than he had on Stan when they were young, and disappearing for most of his adult life certainly hadn’t exactly strengthened whatever bond they’d had, but I gathered there had always been some implicit measure of familial support there. And Ford had started visiting their father again recently, so naturally this would feel like a loss to him.

Not that Stan wasn’t hurting, too. I knew he was; that was why I’d taken a two days off work, left my kids with their friends, and endured seven hours of flights and layovers. But his pain was more a mess of anger coupled with the loss of an _idea_. For him, burying his father was all about diving into regrets and memories.

All _we_ really had to do was turn up and help. Ford was the one who had gotten the “next of kin” call and dropped everything to drive up the coast. He was the executor of the will, and the one shouldering the decisions on funeral arrangements. Frankly, he looked exhausted.

“Jeez, you look terrible,” Stan remarked, echoing my thoughts. “The job running you ragged, or is this all from Dad?”

Ford’s lips thinned. “I thought the fiscally intelligent thing to do would be to stay in the old place while I’m in town. I’m beginning to think that was a serious error in judgement.”

Stan’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “You haven’t been sleeping in your old bed, have you?” Ford looked away, and Stan laughed. “Like it’s not bad enough being back in this hellhole, you don’t even put yourself up in a hotel with a nice bed?”

Ford ran a hand over his face. “And you expect me to believe _you_ would have spent the extra money on a hotel room?”

“You better believe I would! We’re not young guys anymore, poindexter. I need a real mattress these days if I wanna be able to get up in the morning.”

Ford folded his arms over his chest. “And would you still be spending the money if Teagan wasn’t the one paying for it?” His eyes slid sideways toward me.

I held my hands up. “I didn’t even know staying at your old place was an _option_!” I glanced at Stan. “I mean, I’d still prefer a reasonably-priced hotel room, too. But are you talking about your actual childhood home? The place you grew _up_? I can see it?”

“Now you’ve done it,” Stan sighed to his twin. “She won’t shut up till she sees the place now.”

Ford offered us a thin, but genuine, smile. “That’s just as well. I was planning on taking you back there for supper, anyway.”

“Alright,” Stan agreed, “let’s get this over with.”

The drive from the airport in Newark took nearly an hour. It was only late afternoon, but I was more than ready to be done with travelling for the day; I felt like I looked almost as rough as Ford did. I was happy to be here, and I actually _was_ excited to see the place my boyfriend had spent his formative years. It seemed impossible to me that almost fifty years down the line, a small family home above a pawn shop was still not only standing, but inhabited by the same owner. Filbrick Pines had clearly not been a man who accepted change easily.

Anyway, even as interested as I was in all that, flying with Stan had been unnerving for me. Every day with him should have been unnerving, really. Living under a false identity was one thing, but since getting Ford back into our dimension Stan had refused to confront the reality that he officially didn’t exist. Ford was obviously Ford, and Stan had (supposedly) died in a car crashed thirty years ago. So who _was_ the man I was dating? In Gravity Falls, it was just fine (though if the IRS ever decided to come poke around, there might be some trouble). And I knew who he was and could care less about tax fraud or criminal history. But taking him on a plane with a false ID? Going to a place that might very well recognize him and hold a grudge? It was nerve-wracking.

And there was always the concern about me being out in public after dark. I hadn’t been thinking about that at all when I offered to accompany Stan out here. We were a week away from Thanksgiving, closing on winter now, and the sun was setting by six o’clock. On the other hand, the colder weather gave me an excuse to bundle up so that no one would notice me emitting the light of several hundred fireflies. I wasn’t too worried, but I couldn’t afford to forget about it, either. I could handle a few weird looks from passersby in general, but Stan and Ford might actually _know_ these passersby.

This trip was way too complicated. I wished I’d been sensible enough to stay home…but I didn’t actually wish I _had_ stayed home.

While the men chatted in the front seats, I listened with half an ear from the back of Ford’s car. I was interested in hearing how Glass Shard Beach had changed since their childhood, which was what Stan was getting briefed on at the moment, but I also wanted to check in on my boys. I did it via text, rather than be a distraction. It was past five here, so past two back home. They’d just be getting out of school.

Group text. _The flight wasn’t super fun, but I made it here safe. We’re on our way back from the airport now. Ford drives a black Acura now…and he’s a much better driver than Stan. I’m in good hands._ I sent that one, then added another. _Thinking of you guys lots. How was school? Will one of you check in on Horace tomorrow?_

I stared out the window at the scenery. The freeway was close enough to the coast that I caught glimpses of the water every few minutes. It was a cold, gray, windy day, which meant the waves were impressive but not much else. Still, it was the _ocean_. I’d never actually seen the Atlantic Ocean before. I loved water, but thinking about how far those gray waves extended made me shiver a little bit. Endless. Absolutely endless. The fact that Stan and Ford had lived on a boat on a vast, chilly expanse like that gave me new respect for both of them.

_School was good,_ came a text from Dave. _Getting my homework done now. Candy might spend the night tomorrow, too. Grenda’s mom said she’d order Chinese for us. Glad you’re safe._ He ended it with a heart emoji. I sent one in return, glad to know he was enjoying himself.

I had a few more minutes to admire the icy waves crashing against a deserted beach before my phone beeped again. Nicky this time, good. _I’m fine, Mark’s parents are super nice. His sister is kind of annoying, so we’re trying to hide from her. We’re having a game tomorrow, but I’ll ask if they can take me home to see Horace._ I’d barely finished reading it when a second text came through. _Can we have our game THERE tomorrow night? Pleasepleaseplease?_

A bunch of unsupervised twelve-year-olds running around my house? I was going with no on that one. _I know how long your games can run_ , I responded. _I’d rather you have it somewhere with adults around._

He sent me back a crying emoji. I sighed, and texted _Sorry, bud. I know I’m lame._

After a pause, he wrote again. _It’s okay. I miss you and Horace. School was terrible. Tell Stan I said Gideon’s a shit stain._

_Can you hear me sighing from New Jersey?_ I responded.

_Yes_ , he replied with a laughing emoji. Well, that at least suggested he was in a decent mood.

_Love you guys_ , I typed out. _Keep me in the loop, okay?_

Eventually, I got responses from both of them. Since staring at my phone was starting to make me carsick, I went back to watching the scenery and listening to Stan and his brother. They’d moved on from discussing their hometown to reminiscing about a storm they’d rode out on the _Stan o’ War II_ last spring, so they must have been appreciating the size of the waves out there, too.

“And you were worried about your dumb equipment!” Stan said with a laugh.

“That equipment was essential to the study!” Ford defended himself. “ _You_ were worried about losing the _fish_ you’d caught, which was far less important!”

“Less important to who? That fish would have fed us for a week!”

“We still had a dozen MREs below deck!”

“Which is why I helped you lock down the equipment. Teegs, you should’ve seen this thing, it had to be the world’s biggest sea bass! I could have mounted it and put it up in the Shack, it was that big.”

“You just said it could have fed us for a week,” Ford objected. “It could hardly have fed us if you insisted on bringing it back home and mounting it.”

“Hey, I said it _could_ have. Like you said, we still had a dozen MREs below deck.” Stan didn’t actually stick his tongue out at his brother, but the tone was certainly there.

I laughed. “Did you guys fight like this the whole time you were sharing the boat?”

“Of course not,” Ford said at the same time Stan protested “We’re not fighting!”

“You should have recorded it,” I smiled. “Sounds like a more exciting version of _The Odd Couple_.”

Stan grinned at me; Ford looked amused but also embarrassed. “Believe it or not, we did get a great deal of valuable data from that trip.”

“Why _were_ there so many anomalies in that part of the ocean?” I inquired. “Was it similar to the force in Gravity Falls?”

He nodded without taking his eyes off the road. “Very similar. We weren’t able to pinpoint the exact center, or determine _why_ areas like this seem to exist, but it furthered my theory that epicenters of weirdness _are_ naturally occurring. All the strange creatures and phenomena in the vicinity were drawn to that particular location. The further out we went, the less we found—and they all seemed to be moving in the same direction.”

“Fascinating.” I nodded, digesting this information. “And how many of them were dangerous?”

“The phenomena were the more serious risk,” Ford answered blandly. “I wasn’t prepared for the number of strange storms we’d have to weather.”

“But the creatures were pretty good, too,” Stan added. “Did I tell you about the walrus yet, sweetheart?”

I tipped my head to the side. “Walrus?” I wouldn’t want to cross one, but that wasn’t exactly weird for the area they’d been in.

“Wal- _rush_ ,” he corrected me, reclining his seat and turning to look at me. I liked the confident grin he always got when talking about this stuff, but I still couldn’t always distinguish between his real stories and the ones he made up. “They had super speed.”

“Really?” I was awed and horrified, but looked to Ford for confirmation of this beast.

“Oh yes,” he nodded. “They were very impressive.”

“ _Impressive_?” Stan demanded, undoing the top three buttons of his shirt. “I got a _scar_ from those things!” He tugged down his open collar and pointed. “This one, see?”

There was indeed a circular scar about the size of a quarter just inside his shoulder. I’d noticed it before, but he’d never bothered to brief me on where that particular one came from—Stan had so many little scars I’d stopped asking about all their origins. It was just as likely to be from an angry bouncer or hot car engine as it was to be something like a fire demon or walrush.

But now that he was telling me the story, I was delighted to hear it. I leaned forward in my seat to get a better look at the sunken white of the scar. I touched it with my finger, and my eyes flickered up to Stan’s face. He knew I liked his scars. He knew I’d happily have caressed it with my tongue if Ford hadn’t been right there. He was doing this deliberately.

“That was before we knew what we were up against,” he explained cheerily. “We were still about fifty yards off from any of them. Sixer here was sitting there making notes on the ice while I stood around freezing, so I went a few steps closer to get him some pictures. Next thing I know, there’s this walrush right in my _face_ , my arm feels like it got ripped off, and my feet are barely touching the ground. Damn thing tried to impale me!”

My eyes widened in horror. And this was one of his _smaller_ scars. One of the stories he hadn’t yet thought to tell to impress me.

“It nearly succeeded,” Ford added seriously. “It’s just lucky it missed the bone and went through soft tissue.”

“I’m just _lucky_ it didn’t go through my neck instead!” Stan said grimly. I shuddered. He noticed and smiled, putting his hand over mine. “Don’t look so worried, I’m fine. Takes a lot more than Flash the Walrush to mess _me_ up!”

“So what’d you do?” I had to ask.

“I punched him in the face, whaddya think?”

I laughed. “Did it work?”

“Not so much. I start yelling at Ford to get the harpoon, and he’s all _oooh, I don’t want to hurt the specimen, it’s just defending its territory_.”

Ford coughed uncomfortably. “Well, it was! And I was _reaching_ for my sonic destabilizer.”

“So I punched it again,” Stan went on. “And it roared, and before you know it there were three more of them right on top of us.”

I gasped. “That sounds terrifying!”

“Eh.” Stan shrugged. “I still say Crampelter and his gang were uglier.”

“Who?” I asked, thrown off by this comment, but Ford laughed.

“He’s still in town, you know! Retired by now, of course.”

“I didn’t know you could retire from being an asshole,” Stan said with a scowl.

“Well, his son put him in a home, if that’s any consolation. That’s the reason I know about it. The first time I came back, when I was trying to talk Dad into moving someplace with at least _some_ supportive care, he started listing off all the people he knew who had recently been ‘shipped off,’ as he put it. He said something like, ‘even Frank Crampelter, and he’s twenty years younger than me!’”

“Since when were Dad and Crampelter on a first name basis?” Stan huffed. Oh dear.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Ford apologized. “Probably just a side effect of both of them staying in town. It’s not a huge city, Stanley. I know it seemed that way when we were young, but…”

Stan crossed his arms resentfully. “I don’t need a lecture.”

“I wasn’t trying to lecture.” Ford sounded vaguely hurt. “I thought you’d be pleased to hear our childhood bully never made it out of Glass Shard Beach. At least you and I went on to better things.”

Stan huffed again, but he did seem mollified by that thought. I gave his shoulder a little supportive squeeze. “I bet he spent a decade cleaning the barnacles off the dock,” he muttered after a minute, starting to smirk. “It’s all he was smart enough for. Wait. Did you say he had a _son_? Who would fuck that?”

After a split-second of looking shocked at the coarse language, Ford laughed. “Are you asking _me_ about what girls find attractive? In my experience, bullies like Crampelter are the ones who have no trouble getting women.” He seemed to remember that I was in the car, and cleared his throat. “No offense intended, Teagan. I’m delighted that you and my brother are still an item.”

I grinned. “None taken, and so am I.” I reflected thoughtfully on what they’d been saying. “I don’t know this asshole—oh by the way, honey, Nicky wanted me to tell you that Gideon is a shit stain—”

“I see you’re now having a positive influence on her children,” Ford ribbed his twin gently, and Stan laughed delightedly.

“Anyway,” I pressed on, “my guess is that he smooth-talked some girl when they were still in high school and she didn’t know any better, knocked her up, and _maybe_ married her. Though I give it even odds that she divorced his ass down the line if she got wise or got the opportunity. Maybe she even cheated on him with a sweet, sensitive guy first.” I thought a little more, enjoying painting this picture. “Probably his doctor, or lawyer, or banker. Anyway, _that’s_ how guys like that get sons.”

Both men laughed delightedly at the idea. “I hope you’re right,” Stan told me. I’d left my hand on his shoulder, and he now moved his back up there to link his fingers through mine. “Gotta admit, that’s a pretty picture. Crampelter, stuck here, scraping barnacles all day, going home to a screaming baby and wife who’s getting off with his doc.” He laughed again. “Bet I know how that affair started, too.” He put on a woman’s falsetto. “Excuse me, doctor, but I just wanted to ask about my husband—is it _supposed_ to be that small?”

All three of us laughed. “So what’d this guy do to you?” I asked as Ford put on his blinker to indicate he was taking the next freeway exit.

They looked at each other (briefly, since Ford was a conscientious driver). “Typical bully stuff, I suppose. Nothing terribly inventive…it’s almost embarrassing, looking back on it.”

“What, you wanted him to get _creative_? Getting knocked down and laughed at every day was enough for me, genius.”

Ford sighed. “I know. It’s just, after dealing with monsters like _Bill_ , getting kicked around by some thuggish children seems less impressive.”

“Maybe that’s cause I was the one taking most of those hits,” Stan reminded his brother with surprisingly little animosity.

After a short pause, Ford nodded reluctantly. “You’re probably right. I’d forgotten how much you used to defend me.”

“Every chance I could,” Stan said, puffing up with pride. “After Dad stuck us in boxing you could _throw_ an okay punch, but you never could take one.”

Ford started to chuckle. “At least I never resorted to punching stationary objects.”

Stan cracked his knuckles on his free hand. “Hey, that tree was _asking_ for it!” They both laughed, and even though I felt like an outsider on their shared memory, I smiled. “And how was I supposed to get us through that window, if not punching it?”

“ _Opening_ it, you knucklehead!”

“You didn’t really punch through a window?” I asked, though sadly I didn’t doubt it.

“Sure I did,” Stan assured me without a trace of embarrassment. “Scar’s right here.” He tapped a small white line on his right wrist.

I tugged the wrist up to my mouth and planted a kiss on it. “Idiot,” I said, smiling fondly.

“Here we are,” Ford said, making a left turn at a traffic light. “Welcome to Glass Shard Beach, Teagan.”

To my eye, it looked just like everything else we’d driven past. A chilly beach peeked between a mix of run-down older buildings and garish newer ones. The only real difference for me was that I was now riding directly past the buildings instead of watching them flash by from the freeway. Some seagulls circled in the distance, and I saw a newer looking park populated by one family in winter coats. We passed a single-story brick school that looked like it dated from the 1950s; judging from the bitter interest both men showed in the building as we drove by, it was where they’d begun their education. Unfolding around it was a nicer looking neighborhood, and a few large office buildings loomed up to the right.

We took a turn, and I got a better view of the beach. It might have been nice, in summertime. Right now I saw angry-looking teenagers sulking on a sagging boardwalk, and gulls plucking at overflowing trashcans. “They took the swing set down,” Ford said heavily, slowing the car near an empty stretch of sand and rock.

“I know,” Stan answered soberly. “I checked when I was here for Mom’s funeral.”

Hard to believe we’d been laughing just a few minutes ago. This place was a real downer.

“Look, though,” Ford said after a heavy silence, “there’s the cave.” He pointed to a spot further down the beach, where a rocky hill rose up behind the sand.

“You been back in _there_?” Stan asked, elbowing him lightly.

“Are you kidding? It was a mess even when we were children. It’s probably long since been boarded up.”

“It was boarded up then, too. Stop the car, I wanna go check it out.”

Ford looked like he was going to protest, but instead he shrugged and parked the Acura next to a sparse wooden fence. Stan hopped out at once and started down the beach toward the hill. Ford climbed out more sedately, but followed. I hurried to catch up, grabbing Stan’s hand and shivering as the ocean breeze accosted me. I’d grabbed my winter jacket from the seat as I got out of the car, but the frigid moisture in the air cut right through it.

Stan looked almost surprised to see me when I slipped my hand into his, but then he blinked and grinned. “Wanna see our old stomping grounds, huh?”

I hesitated. Did he even want me along for this? Maybe it was something he and Ford needed revisit alone. Dating a twin was a strange challenge I was still trying to get a handle on. “Of course I do! Assuming there’s not a _no girls allowed_ sign posted on it.” I was trying to be cute, but as soon as I’d made the joke I realized I’d rather be direct. “Would you rather I let you guys do this alone? I can go stay warm in the car…”

“Don’t be stupid,” he told me at once. “Of course you’ve gotta see it.” He glanced over at Ford. “If it’s even still there.”

“Don’t look at me,” Ford shrugged, rubbing his shoulders for warmth. “I already told you I haven’t left the main stretch of the beach in thirty-five years.”

“Then it’s time to find out,” Stan declared, holding tight to my hand as he forged onward.

The hill wasn’t as close as it looked from the street. I continued shivering as we stomped along the empty beachfront for a while. “Is it always this cold here?” I asked as we passed through a patch of still-green grass.

“Nah. It’s just the wind chill.” Stan, at any rate, seemed completely unphased. “You’ll see, it’ll be just fine once we get in there.”

“What’s _in_ this cave?” I asked, since hiking without talking felt awkward to me.

“Who knows, these days. Back in the 60’s we’d hide out here from Crampelter and his goons anytime we weren’t working on the _Stan o’ War._ _And_ it’s where we found it.” He tugged me around the side of the hill, Ford close at our heels. “We found a dead gull here once, too,” he added as an afterthought. “And used condoms by someone’s bathing suit, remember that one?”

“Yes.” Ford blushed. (I wondered if he’d ever even had a girlfriend?) “I’d still like to know how the culprit managed to leave the cave without their suit.”

A metal sign came into view, and Ford made an “ah-ha” sound of excitement. Stan grinned and picked up the pace. The sign was rusted and graffitied with a vast array of rude phrases and images, but I could make out a _no trespassing_ warning underneath. We ignored it and proceeded to a small entranceway covered in rotting boards. There were plenty of spiderwebs, more graffiti, and multiple attempts to repair the blockade. The most recent of them was still at least a decade old, and someone had clearly ripped off a few boards at the bottom.

Unperturbed, Stan lay on his stomach to peer under the lowest board. “Can’t see anything,” he grunted. “Teegs, wanna come stick your arm in here?

I flattened myself to the cold sand next to him and wiggled forward on my stomach until my head was on the other side of the boards. It _must_ have been dark in there, because my bioluminescence lit the place up like a bonfire. Shadows scattered away from me, displaying a stone and dirt tunnel about five feet by five feet, littered with empty liquor bottles and blankets. “Looks like someone’s been using the place since you left,” I said, army-crawling my way through. My jacket snagged on a board, and I was annoyed to hear a rip as I tugged it free. I made it all the way in and turned around to survey the place. It didn’t look like it had been used in the past few months, and scattered garbage indicated rebellious teenagers more than a homeless community, but it still made me uneasy to stand alone in what had clearly been someone else’s space. “You guys coming?”

Ford wiggled his way under with more ease than I had, and gave me an approving nod as he got to his feet. “Your pills are still working just fine, I see.”

I nodded. “At times like this I actually _like_ being a walking flashlight. If only I’d visited Gravity Falls as a child. I never would’ve had to be afraid of the dark.”

“If you’d visited Gravity Falls as a child, you might have—”

“I’m, uh. Stuck.”

We both looked down at Stan’s head and shoulders, which were all that had made it under the boards. I put my hand over my eyes and started laughing. “That’ll teach you for having such a strong upper body,” I said with a barely-stifled giggle.

“I don’t think that’s what’s causing the problem,” Ford said, his mouth tugging upward at both corners.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Stan grumped at us, twisting around is if he could find a better way to fit. “Don’t anyone help me or anything.”

I stepped closer and could see the back of his jacket hiking up. “We’re going to scrape half your back off if we try to pull you in,” I fretted. “Are you sure it’s worth it? I mean, look around. It’s not exactly the Ritz in here.”

He propped himself awkwardly up on his elbows and looked around. I took a few steps each direction so that my glow would show him the whole cave. There was a tunnel leading deeper in, but I wasn’t really sure how much we wanted to push our luck.

Stan sighed. “Fine. Let’s head back.”

Ford had walked over to one of the stony walls, and pressed his hand against it. “It was right here, wasn’t it?”

Stan nodded.

“What was?” I asked, following Ford to investigate the spot.

“We signed our names there, when we first discovered this place,” he told me.

“I guess even Sharpie fades eventually.” Stan sighed, and continued surveying the place. “Looks like some kids are putting the place to a lot better use than we ever did.”

“Nonsense,” Ford assured him. “What _possible_ use could be better than finding our boat?”

“You’re standing on another condom, genius,” Stan told him flatly, and laughed when his brother made a startled yelp and hopped back. He hadn’t been—though I would certainly have believed it, given the other supplies left around this place.

I crouched down next to Stan and murmured “I think we should come back on our own later” with a secretive wink.

“Only if we bring a crowbar to get me in,” he grunted, but I caught his answering smirk before he started wiggling slowly backward through the entrance. “Let’s get outta here.”

*

I stared around at the second-floor apartment that once upon a time, my boyfriend had called home. It had that unpleasant, slightly musty smell of a place that hasn’t had a proper vacuuming in years, and the patterns on the walls and furniture were outdated. (Though to be fair, I had some pretty ancient wallpaper in areas of my house too, so maybe I shouldn’t have judged.) There was an old box-style tv, and stacks of various newspapers and mail covering the coffee table. There was also a stack of photo albums sitting in the faded plaid armchair, but that struck me more as the work of Ford than anything left out by their father before his death.

And Ford clearly _had_ been at work here; there was a fresh gleam to the visible surfaces, and there were partially filled boxes all over the room. The sofa had blankets and a pillow on it, and a wheeled suitcase lay unzipped at the foot.

“You been sleeping on the _couch_?” Stan asked, hands on his hips.

“It’s more comfortable than my old bunk,” Ford explained with a half-shrug. “And I couldn’t quite bring myself to sleep in Mom and Dad’s bed.”

“Yeah,” Stan agreed with an uncomfortable laugh. “That’d be weird.” He’d already commented on all the “junk” in the large bay window that overlooked the street and rifled through the papers with a disgusted shake of his head. Now he walked on into the kitchen, his face a mix of awe and sorrow. “Hardly anything’s changed,” he remarked unhappily. “It’s even the same stove. Mom always wanted a new stove.” He looked over accusingly at Ford. “Why didn’t you buy her one when you got all that grant money?”

“It was for scientific research!” said Ford indignantly. Then his shoulders slumped. “The truth is, I hardly came home after I started college. You know I never fit in here, and I never really wanted to come back. Shermie was here, and I always figured Mom could take care of herself.”

Stan didn’t look impressed, but he gave him a nod of understanding. “I didn’t come back either, but at least I don’t blame myself much for that. Let’s see the rest of the place.”

We followed him through a curtain into a master bedroom that was mostly filled by a queen-sized bed and a large wardrobe. There were some hats on top of the wardrobe, and a few family pictures on the walls. There was a book about the Civil War on the bedside table, and a dull-looking trombone propped in the corner. Stan opened the wardrobe to reveal a long line of dresses and shoes, along with one shelf of carefully folded shirts and pants. The remaining top shelf was arranged with various trinkets and jewelry.

“Who played the trombone?” I asked as Stan examined a bracelet on the top shelf.

“No one,” Ford answered. “I think someone must have sold it to the pawn shop years ago, and Mom pushed him to keep it because she liked the idea of someone in the family being musical.”

“Sherman tried,” Stan recalled, setting the bracelet back and picking up what looked like a marble egg cup. “I remember him blasting on the damn thing after dinner every night for a while.”

“I think he liked it,” Ford said, his face taking on that faraway look of someone reliving a brief slice of memory. “He was all set to join the high school band till Dad talked him out of it.”

They both looked over at the ancient trombone again—maybe wondering, like I was, why their father had kept it all these years. It would probably have been worth a little money, if he’d tried to sell it. Instruments always were.

“Eh,” Stan declared loudly, turning to leave the room. “He was crap at it anyway.”

After only a quick peek into the bathroom (which sported a vintage aqua-colored tub and matching toilet), we progressed into the last room of the home. I hovered in the doorway behind the brothers as they soaked up the memories of the place. “He’d shoved a lot of old boxes in here,” Ford said regretfully. “I had to move some of them out to the living room just so I could get through and see what was here.”

Stan was looking around, shaking his head. “This is a _mess_. It’ll take weeks to go through all this crap!”

“I know.” Ford ran a hand over his face. “I’ve been trying to make a dent, but there’s just too many other things demanding my attention. I found some of our posters and books—remember the Sibling Brothers? They’re all in one of those boxes.” He pointed. “Even a few toys and clothes, and one box that appears to be entirely my school tests and papers.”

“Show off,” Stan muttered without malice.

“For all I know, yours are in here somewhere, too.”

I stared around the room. The bunk beds were made up with comforters as if their dad had been expecting company, but they might have been like that for years without ever being used. There were two dressers, and what might be a bookshelf was just visible behind a stack of boxes. A man who ran a pawn shop for years, but acted like a pack rat in his own home? Was all the stuff in here recently shoved in, or had the boxes been waiting ever since Ford left home? Was their mother the reason so many things had been saved, or was their father more sentimental than he’d let on?

I rolled up my sleeves and stepped forward to open the nearest box. “Let’s see how many we can get through before dinner, then. You guys set aside anything you want to keep or think might be worth money, and everything else can get donated.” This box was full of decaying cookbooks. I grimaced. “Or thrown away. Is there a Sharpie or pen around here?”

“I’ll get one,” Ford said, slipping back out the door.

“Cookbooks,” I said to Stan. “Not in great shape. Anything about that make you feel particularly sentimental?”

“Makes me remember Mom’s cooking,” he admitted, “but you’re a way better cook than her. We can pitch them.”

I nodded, and when Ford returned to pass me a marker I drew both a large check mark and an X on the lid of the box. “You didn’t want old cookbooks, did you, Ford?”

He smiled tightly. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Good.” I grabbed the next box and peered at the contents of that one. “Cassette tapes! An entire box of old cassettes…and is this an eight-track? Yep, cassettes and eight-tracks.”

Stan lowered himself slowly on the floor next to me and grabbed the box. “What are they?” He pulled one out at random, and his face lit up. “This was mine!” He snatched another, squinting at the letters on it. “This one, too! These are _my_ eight-tracks!”

“Let me see.” Ford sat down next to him and began pawing through with similar excitement. “The Windows! This one was mine!”

“Like hell it was!” Stan plucked it out of his hand. “I got it for my birthday!”

“ _Our_ birthday,” Ford corrected him, making a grab for it. “They were _my_ favorite band, Stanley!”

“If it was yours, why didn’t you take it off to college then, genius?”

I scooted across the floor to another box and turned my attention to that one. An entire box of old batteries in varying sizes, how useful. There was even that disgusting white stuff on half of them. I made a face and put the lid back on. “Do you even have anything to _play_ an eight-track on?”

“I’m willing to bet it’s in here somewhere,” Ford said. “What do you have there?”

“Batteries. I think you can safely get rid of them.” I marked the box with another X and check.

“Why would Dad have a box of old batteries?” Ford mused, looking disturbed by the prospect.

“Probably cause he was 98 and stopped throwing anything out after Mom died,” Stan told him tactlessly. “I bet one of these has all his used Kleenex.” That triggered Ford into making a face of outright revulsion, and he laughed. “What’s in the next one, sweetie?”

I shifted boxes until a fresh one sat on top of the batteries. Both men were watching me as if I was unwrapping something precious. “You could do this on your own, too,” I said irritably. “I promise I’ll tell you if I find anything interesting.”

“Yeah but how will you _know_ if it’s interesting?” Stan objected.

I sighed. “I knew music was. I knew old batteries weren’t. Do you want to spend the entire week doing this?”

They each grabbed a box. We passed the marker back and forth, narrating everything we found to each other. There were at least five boxes of books, ranging from children’s anthologies to mystery paperbacks to thick scientific tomes. I found one box entirely of ties, and Ford uncovered one containing dozens of loose black and white photographs. Stan found a box filled with pens, staplers, and rulers. There was also an ornamental letter opener in that one that looked like it might be made of real silver. I was fairly sure I saw it vanish under Stan’s shirt, but elected not to say anything.

There was a box of battered playing cards and old toys, which I let the men peruse as I added X’s to boxes of worn socks, extension cables, and outdated coupons. Eventually I took a break from opening boxes to moving the ones we’d already checked. By the time they got done pawing through a bunch of their mother’s charts on horoscopes, palmistry, and Tarot, I had neat stacks of boxes four high lining one bedroom wall. My back hurt fiercely from all that leaning over, but I was sure Stan and Ford had it even worse.

When I ventured out of the bedroom to use the bathroom and check the time, the bay window showed me full dark outside. We’d been at it longer than I’d realized! I took a quick picture of the twins in their old room and sent it on to my boys at home with the message _We’ve been busy! Love you._ I’d been intending to suggest that we see about getting something to eat, but in the time I was out of the room Stan had finally uncovered the eight-track player. They were already plugging it in and loading a tape; I sat down to poke at another box while they did that, and by the time I finished putting an X on a large cache of canned goods a familiar tune by The Mayflies was playing loudly enough to lift my spirits.

Stan offered me a hand, pulling me back to my feet so quickly I nearly lost my balance. I laughed and protested as he spun me around and up against him. Ford stood by watching us and smiling for a moment, then gasped as if he’d had a revelation and hurried off through the doorway. He returned before the song had ended, but he was balancing three tumblers of amber liquid between his twelve fingers.

“Oooh,” I said happily, mostly freeing myself from Stan. I let him keep his arm around my waist, since I loved him and his body heat was slightly easing the stiffness in my back. Whatever was in those glasses was going to help relax my muscles even more.

“This Dad’s, or yours?” Stan asked as we each accepted a glass.

“Mine, I suppose.” Ford lifted his tumbler in a wordless toast. Stan tossed all of his back in one gulp, but Ford and I took smaller sips. “One of my friends gave it to me when I explained why I had to go to New Jersey for a week. It’s a thirty-year single malt scotch.”

My father had been gone through a scotch-drinking phase while I was still living close to home; I’d given him a similar bottle for Christmas one year, and knew that it wasn’t exactly a cheap gift. I whistled low in appreciation. “You’re making some good friends!”

“What, is that like, special or something?” Stan raised his eyebrows.

I put a palm along one of his cheeks, and kissed the other. “Yes. Thanks for sharing, Ford.”

Stan watched us sipping it for a few seconds, then announced he needed a refill so he could properly appreciate it. I sat back down by an unopened box and took another, larger sip. With good scotch and good music as well as good company, this could almost be fun.

We made it through the eight track of The Mayflies, finished our first round of drinks, and uncovered a box of old telephone bills, another of Lincoln Logs, yet another of comic books featuring cowboys and aliens, and then a treasure trove of old report cards from school. Stan’s weren’t nearly as bad as he’d led me to believe—in fact, they weren’t all that much worse than mine had been in my school days (I’d been a solid B student). Ford being a straight-A genius who Stan assured me had been the smartest kid in school must have made Stan’s Bs and Cs seem terrible in comparison, though. Most of his teachers’ notes were more along the lines of “doesn’t apply himself” and “disruptive” rather than “has difficulty grasping the material,” so I wondered if he’d realized early on that he’d never match his twin’s intellect and gave up trying.

Ford’s notes were all “well ahead of grade level” and “pleasure to have in class.” “They tried to persuade me to skip fifth grade,” he confided. “But I refused. Socially, you see, I had much more difficulty. Everyone either kept their distance from me or bullied me outright. Remember show and tell in second grade, Stan?”

“Course,” Stan nodded, eyes flickering over one of the yellowed sheets of paper.

He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate for once, but scotch was making Ford chattier than usual. “I made the grave mistake of bringing something potentially _interesting_ , instead of some pointless sports trophy. Rather than being responsive to exposure to something new, the other children started throwing items at me. A football nearly knocked my glasses off, and a book caught me in the shoulder and knocked me off balance.”

“Didn’t the teacher stop it?” I asked in distress.

Ford shook his head sadly. “She was of the school of thought—ha, pardon my pun—that I had brought this upon myself for daring to buck convention. I suppose she would have intervened eventually, but she probably believed that letting it go on would teach me better how to interact with my classmates and possibly fit in.”

I made a face. “I’m glad school attitudes have improved a bit since then.”

“Have they?” He took a sip from his second scotch and stared at the papers contemplatively. “I wouldn’t know. Where was I?

“The kids were throwing things at you?”

“Yes, right.” He nodded very seriously. “Stanley jumped between me and a flying trophy, and after getting hit with a few more items he made his way to the first boy who had attacked me and punched him.”

“I got this scar from the trophy,” Stan looked up to say, tapping a small spot on his nose. “And detention for throwing that punch.” He snorted. “Hardly even hurt him!”

“But it did stop them,” Ford reminded him with a smile. “After that, I’m afraid I let you do all my fighting for me.”

“All the getting my ass kicked, you mean?” Stan smiled back. I wiggled closer, leaning into his side, nursing my scotch as I listened to Ford’s story.

Ford blushed ever so slightly. “I suppose so. I became even more awkward around others my own age, and relied on you too much. I had no interest in skipping a grade if Stanley wasn’t going to be there with me.”

“For a while, anyway,” Stan muttered.

Ford caught it and sighed. “It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us if I’d passed on furthering my education. Surely you know that.”

Stan set the reports he’d been perusing back into the box. “I guess I do. And don’t call me Shirley.”

I giggled. Ford gave us a weak, tired smile. “Hey, we ran out of music!” I said brightly, getting to my feet with only a hint of unsteadiness and walking over to the eight-track player. “Do I just flip it over, like a cassette?”

“No, we already played all the programs,” Stan said at once, setting his tumbler on the floor and hurrying to stop me somehow destroying his possessions. In my slightly relaxed, sluggish state, my brain suddenly grasped what neither brother had been petty enough to say aloud. All Stan’s things from high school were still here, because he hadn’t had a chance to take them. Their father had literally kicked him out with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and everything he’d cared about at seventeen had spent half a century forgotten in this room. That thought brought a _strong_ wave of resentment up inside me, and I finished off my scotch in one swallow to try and subdue the feeling.

“So Ford,” I said, letting Stan put a new eight-track in the player, “I think you said something about feeding us dinner? Because music, drinks, and dusty boxes isn’t a bad way to spend the evening, but if you don’t want me getting drunk and passing out I’m eventually going to need to eat something.”

He glanced up at the clock on the wall in surprise. “Oh! Of course! I’m so sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” I reassured him. “What were you thinking?”

“There’s a very good take-out place down the street,” he said as new music started playing. (It was a group I’d always liked, and I gave Stan a wide grin.) “I tried it on my way out of town a few months ago, after my first visit back.”

“What’re we talking?” Stan asked, turning away from the player. “Pizza? Chinese?”

“Tomato pie,” Ford grinned.

“No kidding.” Stan grinned back.

I looked between the two of them, searching for an answer I wasn’t getting. I picked my drink back up. “That’s something edible, right?”

“It’s just like pizza, sweetie,” Stan told me with a dismissive flap. “Only better!”

I sure hoped so. “I’m always down for pizza!”

“Excellent. What toppings? I’ve always been partial to sausage and onion, personally.”

Stan nodded eagerly, and I cringed. “Sausage and onion? And I’m supposed to kiss you afterward?” He winked at me, and I giggled again. “Can you get a vegetarian side or something for me?”

“Of course,” Ford said, and went off into the main room to track down a phone and place the order.

I yawned and leaned into Stan, pressing my face against his shoulder. “Hard to believe it’s barely dinnertime back home.”

“Yeah, but you got up before five to finish packing,” he reminded me.

I snuggled against him. The proximity reminded me that I was tired, slightly drunk, hungry, and my back hurt—but it didn’t make any of those things seem particularly like a _bad_ thing. They just made me want to take him someplace warm and soft and pass out together. Given all the emotional weight of this place, he was probably even more exhausted than I was. I didn’t even care about sex, I just wanted to curl up against him and sleep.

“How are you doing?” I asked after another yawn. “With all this?”

“It’s a lot,” he admitted. “I’m beat, too, you know. But Ford’s in way worse shape. I think he’s taking it pretty hard. You notice he’s hardly even talked about Dad yet?”

I nodded into his chest. “I did. Don’t you want some answers from him, though?”

“He’ll give them when he’s ready.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Ford doesn’t like to be pushed.”

“Oh, and you do?” I teased gently.

“Ha, good luck pushing _me_ into something!”

I smirked. “I’m fairly sure I’ve seen Mabel do just that dozens of times.”

“Oh, well,” he huffed, “Mabel’s different.”

“What about me?” I looked up, caught him looking down at me, and kissed the tiny scar on his nose. “Some day I’m going to need a full accounting of all these little scars, by the way. The fact that I learned about two new ones just today is horrendously unfair, I hope you know. Unacceptable.”

“Freak.” He gave me an incredibly endearing smirk and wink.

“You know it.” I wrapped my arms tighter around him.

Ford cleared his throat, and we turned back to the doorway. “Dinner will be here in half an hour or less,” he announced with only a trace of awkwardness. “I was thinking we could continue with this enterprise until it arrives, and then we can retire to the living room for a well-earned reprieve?”

I giggled and looked at Stan. “He talks like a Victorian novel when he’s tipsy.”

Stan had a good laugh at that one, and Ford chuckled. “I suppose I do. But I still have the mental capacity to persevere with a few more boxes. Though what else can be in all of them, I swear I don’t know. We’ve already uncovered nearly everything I can think of that they might have saved.”

“Haven’t found the used Kleenex yet,” Stan pointed out, and I giggled some more.

Despite all of us being on our third or fourth tumbler of scotch by the time the food arrived, we did get a second wall of their old room lined with neatly stacked boxes. It was also getting far easier to access the bed, dressers, and ten or so boxes that held items one or the other of the Pines actually wanted to keep.

A buzzer sounded clearly in the living room, and Ford hurried off down the flight of stairs that didn’t run directly through the first floor business. (While that part of the building was still a pawn shop, it hadn’t belonged to the family in over a decade, and the access point between the two had been boarded up. I suppose it was lucky there had been a “back” door that opened on something that wasn’t a set of rickety metal steps running along the exterior of the building.) A minute later we could hear his feet on the bare wooden steps we’d used to enter the home, and then he burst through the door carrying two pizza boxes.

I’d just emerged from the bathroom, where I’d wanted to wash some of the dust from all those boxes before eating, and I nearly tripped over my own feet as I went to grab a slice. Stan caught me before I could fall, pulling me safely up against him and then backward into a deep romantic dip. I giggled.

I was still sober enough that I could note how we were each processing all that liquor. Stan was quieter than usual, but also more physical. Ford had become more verbose and professorial. And I was giggling an awful lot.

“Tomato pie” was essentially just a thin-crust pizza with the sauce on the top instead of underneath. It must have been some east coast thing. I didn’t know how it compared to whatever Stan and Ford had enjoyed growing up—though judging by their reactions, it compared favorably—but it was a perfectly decent pizza. Then again, I was so hungry by that point that it probably could have tasted terrible and I’d still have devoured four slices. It had been completely dark for hours now, and even back home it was well past dinner time. We ate our first few slices quickly and talked very little, but after two I slowed down enough to get myself a drink of water and send the boys another update. Dave wrote back to say _what r u still doing awake?_ and Nicky sent me an _okay, night <3 _Good enough.

I sat back down on the floor, where I’d left my tumbler. None of us had bothered with plates. Ford and Stan were on the sofa, but I felt slightly weird sitting on what was currently Ford’s bed. The floor was just fine, even if the rug did smell musty. There were a few pieces of pizza—sorry, tomato pie—left, but the men had slowed down, too. I leaned against Stan’s calves and yawned expansively. “Thanks. That was good.”

“Thank _you_ for all your assistance,” Ford responded. “Attempting to do it all myself felt almost insurmountable.”

“We’re done for the night, though, right?” Stan asked, wagging a finger at his brother.

“I—yes, of course. We’ve already accomplished more than I had expected. And it’s getting late.”

“Yeah.” Stan stretched and scratched his lower back. “I gotta tell you, I’m beat.”

“You’re more than welcome to spend the night here,” Ford offered. He made a small hiccup and hit his chest a few times. “I’m clearly in no condition to chauffeur you to your hotel.”

“Why not?” Stan asked, switching to scratching his neck.

“Cause he’s drunk, honey,” I reminded him, cuddling up against his knee. “So’m I, but I’d rather call a taxi than sleep on the floor or in your parents’ bed.” A thought occurred to me: I was still hungry. I picked up another piece of pie and took a huge bite. Another thought occurred, and I voiced it. “Can I ask? Where did Sherman sleep?”

“Shermie?” Ford blinked owlishly. “With us. That is to say, he shared our room.”

“He moved out first chance he got though, too,” Stan pointed out, grabbing a fresh piece of pie.

“Can you blame him?” Ford snorted in amusement. “I wouldn’t have wanted to share a room with two eight-year-olds as a teenager, either!”

“Nah, I wasn’t blaming him,” Stan said at once, resting his non-pizza-filled hand on my shoulder. “I was glad when he moved out. They shouldn’t have crammed us all in that room in the first place, it was like sardines in there.”

“That room?” I asked, jerking a thumb back toward the one we’d just spent three hours in. “Your older brother had to _share_ that room with you?”

Stan shrugged. “Hey, we weren’t rich.”

I shook my head in awe. “I could _never_ get Dave to share a room with Nicky and Horace. And he’s only _three_ years older.”

“Horace?” Ford repeated doubtfully.

“Our ghost,” I said, and giggled for absolutely no reason. “He’s not really my son, but try telling _him_ that.”

“Good lord, you still have it? I recall you saying Nicky enjoyed the ghost, but you _kept_ it?” Ford asked, shocked.

“Don’t fight her on it, sixer,” Stan said with the definite air of a man who had already tried.

Ford looked like he was going to say something anyway, but thought better of it. “Right. Well. Yes. When we were small, Sherman had one side of the room and we had the other. He strung up a curtain that last year or so, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“The lack of privacy is both impressive and horrifying,” I said aloud. Poor Sherman! “What was he like?”

Both of them stared at me blankly, as if I’d asked an unusual question. I rolled my eyes. “Come on, I know he was a lot older, but you sure would have spent enough time with him! Did he play with you? Yell at you? Stand up for you?”

“Yep,” Stan said concisely. “To all of ‘em.” I made a small sound of exasperation, and he grinned. He also slid down the sofa until he was almost lying down, and slung his forearm around the front of my collarbone. I wriggled contentedly; it wasn’t quite a hug and he wasn’t quite groping me, but I liked the passively possessive vibe of it.

Ford made a better effort to answer the question. “He was…well, a lot like Dad, I suppose. More like him than either of us, at any rate.”

“He wasn’t a jerk, though,” Stan said, deciding to contribute to the conversation after all. “He used to tell us jokes when we were little, remember?”

Ford groaned. “The really terrible ones, yes. I blame him for your attempts at comedy in later years.”

“Like the ones you’d read on the boat last summer?” I asked, craning around to get a look at their faces without forcing Stan to move his arm.

“Yeah!” He smiled fondly. “ _Just_ like those.”

“He wasn’t as rigid as our father,” Ford continued to ruminate. “But he wasn’t really very good at the creative stuff. I think rules made him feel safe, in a way they never could have for me.”

“Or me,” Stan agreed decisively. He thought, and then added “He was quiet. Worked hard.” He laughed suddenly. “Couldn’t lie to save his life.”

“He didn’t need to, with you around!” Ford raised what was left of his drink in a mock toast.

“So where’d he go when he moved out?” I asked curiously.

“Oh, he entered the workforce,” Ford told me, getting to his feet and heading back to the kitchen for the bottle of scotch. “Who was his employer, Stanley?”

“Do I look like I know? I was nine!”

Ford accepted this. “He eventually wound up working at the water treatment plant, but I don’t recall when that happened. I think he and Cassie were already married, but…” He shook his head, giving up the chase. He also returned to the sofa with the scotch bottle. “Anyone else need a refill?”

I held up a hand, but to ward it off rather than give an affirmative answer. “Thanks, but I’d feel kinda bad if I threw up in your old house. I’m maxed out for now.”

“Whose house is it now, anyhow?” Stan asked, levering himself up a bit. “It yours?”

Ford looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I was going to sell it. And split the profits with you, naturally.”

Stan scowled. “You still haven’t told me what was in the will. Cause he left one, right? No way an old stickler like Dad wouldn’t spell out just what he wanted.”

His brother sighed and focused very intently on the liquid in his glass. “You can see it, if you’d like. As the executor, I have a copy.”

To my surprise, Stan sat up and slapped a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “It’s fine. I knew he was gonna leave you everything anyhow. Glad you’re here to take it, actually. Pretending to be you to get it…hey, even I’ve got some standards.”

Ford nodded wordlessly. I had a feeling that he, too, was surprised to see Stan being so magnanimous. But then again, he always _had_ loved his brother.

“How much you think you’ll get for it? Place can’t be worth much.”

“I’m speaking to a realtor on Monday. He didn’t leave it _all_ to me, you know.”

For such a short span of time, I saw hope flash across Stan’s face. Then it vanished, and he nodded in understanding. “Cassie? Oscar?”

“Even a bit for Dipper and Mabel,” Ford confirmed.

Stan nodded, looking depressed. I squeezed his hand.

“Of course I’m going to split _everything_ with you,” Ford said.

“You’re what?” Stan utterly failed to keep the disbelief out of his voice…though I doubted he was even trying.

“Stanley,” Ford sighed, “I spent nearly our entire childhood letting you stand up for me. And then the one time that I could have stood up for you and made a difference, I didn’t. If I had just _believed_ you that day, if I’d said something to him instead of letting my anger get the best of me…” He shook his head. “Our lives would have gone very differently. I’m sorry. Let me make things right, finally, between us. I don’t even need the money! I have excellent benefits through my job.”

“You don’t need it, why don’t you give me _all_ of it, then?” Stan said darkly, and waited for his flustered twin to attempt to stammer out an answer. Then he laughed, and punched him in the shoulder. “You don’t owe me anything, knucklehead. Things’ve been fine between us since after Weirdmageddon, and if you don’t know that you’re dumber than you look.” He paused just long enough to let all that register. “But I’ll take the money.”

“Of course you will.” Ford cleared his throat several times.

“How much is it, anyhow?” Stan asked casually.

“About two hundred thousand,” Ford said, nearly making Stan drop his pizza crust. “That’s after subtracting the percentage for the rest of the family, naturally. ”

“Oh, yeah, naturally.” Stan’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “So you’re giving me a hundred K. A _hundred_.”

“Approximately, yes. I’ll still need to deduct funeral and hospital expenses, but I haven’t included any profit we might make from the house itself or any of his belongings.”

Stan groped blindly around for my hand. I gave it to him, impressed by how hard he gripped it. I squeezed back nearly as hard, ignoring the fact that I had three teardrops streaking their way down my cheeks. It wasn’t the money making me emotional, and it wasn’t the liq…well, okay, maybe it _was_ the liquor, a little bit. But mostly it was watching this entire exchange, knowing how much it meant to the two of _them_. They could be manly and not cry or hug, but with only a little less self-restraint I’d have been sobbing and flinging my arm around both of them to make up for it.

They spent a long time after that pouring over numbers and reading papers. I fell asleep on the sofa, qualms about it being Ford’s bed long forgotten. I still felt drunk and exhausted when Stan shook me awake about an hour later, but I was glad we were finally heading to the hotel. Hopefully checking in past midnight was acceptable. Hopefully we were both sober enough to check in. I did manage to call a taxi and get us a ride from the house to the hotel, so we could probably pull it off.

I had another drink of water. Ford had fallen asleep in the armchair at some point while I was passed out—the albums that had been there when we arrived were now stacked on the floor. Stan, however, was full of cheer and energy. Money always had that effect on him. Not that this was about the money, exactly. But it wasn’t _not_ about the money, either.

His good mood was strong enough that it woke me up completely. I will still slightly unfocused and easily amused, but I was functional enough to share in his excitement.

“Can you believe it, sweetie?” he asked as we waited for our ride. “Just think about that kinda money!”

“It’s not _that_ much,” I tried to say reasonably, but wound up smiling indulgently instead. “You can’t exactly retire on a hundred grand.”

Utterly unphased, he grinned and pulled me into a kiss that left me breathless. “You forget who you’re talking to? Just give me one good trip to Vegas, and I’ll turn it into _five_ hundred, at least!”

“Honey,” I protested uneasily, “you don’t know that! You could lose it all just as easily.”

He held me back by the shoulders, looking almost affronted. “That’s why you cheat! Don’t you remember everything I taught you?”

I nodded uneasily. I _did_ remember, but I was also fairly sure casinos knew how to spot a cheater.

“What,” he demanded picking up on my reluctance, “you don’t think I can do it?”

I shrugged. “It’s your money. I just don’t want to see you lose it. Or wind up in jail.”

“Why not?” He winked. “You’d bail me out, right?”

“What sort of question is that? Of _course_ I would!” Clearly it was no use fighting him on this. He was too excited.

Stan laughed, picking me up off my feet and spinning me around the tiny kitchen. “Then what are you worried about? Let’s hit Atlantic City, right now!”

I laughed with him; it was impossible not to. “Shhh, you’ll wake Ford!” He put me down and cast a glance toward the living room, but his brother was still out cold. “How are we going to get there, exactly?”

“Cab driver can take us.”

“I think that’s out of their range, and even if they did, you don’t have a hundred thousand dollars _yet_.”

“So loan me some,” he said stubbornly, putting his hands on my waist and moving in close. Between the way he was smiling and the energy coming off him in waves, I didn’t stand a chance. I let my arms slide around the back of his neck and tipped my face up hopefully. He kissed me hard and thorough, lifting me up until I was sitting on the kitchen counter, my shoulders resting against one of the cupboards, Stan pressing close between my legs. It was incredible. I slid forward as far as I could, pressing against him hard and kissing my way along the strong line of his jaw.

“We should go to the bedroom,” I all but groaned as his hands moved under my shirt and over my bare back.

“We should go to Atlantic City,” he corrected me, nudging my mouth back up to his.

I moaned weakly against his lips, rocking forward on the edge of the counter. “Are they even open this late?”

He laughed delightedly again. “It’s a _casino_ , Teegs.”

“Tomorrow,” I begged, sliding my hands under _his_ shirt. “I can help you a lot better if I’m not tired or drunk.”

“Fair point.” He kissed me again. “How about a consolation prize though?”

I nodded rapidly. “Which bunk was yours?”

“Bottom.” His hands had moved from my back to my chest.

I approved. “You ever have sex on it?”

“Only with myself.”

I grinned against his mouth. “Wanna?”

His reaction was very much an affirmative. I was just sliding off the counter when a car horn blared outside. Oh. Right. Dammit.

Stan groaned, not in the sexy way. “Is that our ride _already_?”

I stumbled over to where I’d left my phone in the living room, wishing I was headed to Stan’s old bedroom instead. Damn it, Teagan from fifteen minutes ago, why did you have to be so eager to get out of here?

I sighed. “Guess we’ll have to settle for that nice, comfy hotel bed, yeah?”

“Like I have a choice? I know you’re not gonna make the guy wait forever. You’re too nice.”

“Hey, you don’t want to make me pay him extra, do you?” I asked, batting my lashes. “They charge per minute.”

“You’re no fun,” he muttered, but he picked up both our coats and tossed mine to me.

“I’m _tons_ of fun,” I responded with a wink, putting my arm in the first sleeve.

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

I stepped into his personal space, leaning tantalizingly close. “I think I’ve proved it enough over the past few months, don’t you?” I tugged down the collar of his shirt, pressing my parted lips against his collarbone.

Stan put his hands on my butt and yanked me in closer. “Are we doing this, or not? The suspense is killing me.”

“Yes,” I said decisively. “Just hold on a sec.” I shrugged my other arm into my coat as I ran out the door and jogged down the enclosed stairwell. There was a second door at ground level; I hurried out it, looking around for the taxi. It was parked right along the curb, its engine running. I rapped on the passenger window, and it rolled down.

“Yeah?” A blonde guy about my age looked at me from the driver’s seat, and lifted his eyebrows.

“Sorry,” I said breathlessly. “We aren’t quite as ready as I thought we’d be. Can you wait ten minutes, please?”

He looked dissatisfied. “You’ll get charged for it, you know.”

“I know. That’s fine. Thanks!” I gave him my sunniest smile and tore back up off the steps, shedding my coat as I went. I should have known better than to go that fast, especially while still tipsy—I tripped right at the top, slamming my calf against the sharp edge of one of the wooden steps. I hissed, rotated into a sitting position on the step, and swore loudly.

“What? What happened?” Stan appeared in the doorway, immediately stepping close enough to give me a hand.

I grit my teeth. “Tripped.”

“Yeah, I got that.” He sat on the step beside me, shaking his head. “Jeez, I know you’re into scars and all, but do you really have to give _yourself_ so many?”

“Apparently,” I said, and started to giggle again at the ridiculousness. “So you want me to blow you in the stairway, or wait for me to limp all the way back to your room?”

He stood, scooping me up and throwing me over his shoulder as he did. I nearly whacked my head on the stairway wall, but continued giggling about being carried like this. “Don’t throw your back out again,” I warned him as he took me right past Ford, still conked out in the armchair, and through the door to their bedroom. He shifted me around, setting me down more carefully on the bottom bunk. It squeaked loudly.

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” He put one hand on either side of me, leaning over.

My giggles faded away, replaced by unsteady breathing. I kicked my shoes off and unzipped my pants fast enough to set a new world record. The front of my calf still throbbed and stung sharply, but now that Stan was against me that just seemed like an added stimulant. Between the pain, the residual effects of alcohol, the strange intimacy and eroticism of being in his childhood bedroom, and the inappropriate excitement of knowing we could wake and scandalize Ford at any moment (not to mention making our driver wait), I was almost sick with desire.

I removed all my clothes as quickly as humanly possible, making the bed squeak again as I shuffled sideways to give Stan room. He’d just finished removing his pants when I pulled him down beside me. My heart was racing. I kissed him, shifting slowly until I was in the dominant position. “Stan,” I whispered, wiggling my knees and rotating my hips until I was in the right position. “Are you sure you want to defile your old bed this way?”

“Yeah.” He held my hips firmly and pulled them forward, pushing in easily in one movement. I tilted my head back and let out the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. I arched forward harder, taking him in as far as I could, brushing my breasts against his chest as I rocked back and forth. We moved quickly and passionately; if getting tied up and hit was my thing, doing it someplace we were likely to get caught was Stan’s. And it _was_ exciting, I’d give him that.

I’d give him a lot more than that.

I moaned, and he clapped a hand tight over my mouth to shut me up. I made a softer sound in the back of my throat instead, distantly feeling my eyes roll back in my head and my thighs trembling as he rubbed against that same spot over and over and _over—!_

We both came forcefully, and the bed gave several more obnoxious squeaks. I giggled as I collapsed against him, snuggling close and kissing his neck. “Hot.”

He grinned and kissed me. “Get dressed before we get caught.”

“Did it used to squeak like that when you touched yourself at night?”

Stan laughed softly. “It used to squeak like that when I _breathed_.” He lifted a shoulder, nudging me off. I got up, grabbed for my clothes, and found myself wishing we’d found that old box of tissues in here after all. The thought made me laugh more, but I was able to do it quietly as I pulled my clothes back on. My leg bore my weight now, though I could already see a dark bruise starting to form there.

Well, my underwear felt disgustingly wet now, but there was something deliciously rebellious about it. As soon as Stan had his pants on, I opened the bedroom door and peeked out. If Ford _wasn’t_ still sound asleep, he was doing a good job of faking it. I strolled out with only a slight limp, picking my coat up off the floor. Stan was close behind me.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked, pulling open the front door. I flipped him off as we headed down the stairs.

The taxi was still there, thank goodness. I lifted a hand in greeting and thanks as soon as we came into view, then realized—like a stone dropping into my stomach—that the hand I’d lifted was bare, and lighting up the poorly lit sidewalk. I was wearing a coat, but I’d been too tipsy, tired, or horny to even consider covering my face and hands.

“ _Shit!_ ” I grabbed Stan by the front of his coat, pulling him close as if we were necking. “He can see me! And he saw me earlier, when I asked him to wait!” I felt very sober now, and knew my eyes were wide with dismay.

“I see you too, sweetheart,” Stan said with a puzzled smile. “You’re pretty easy to see at night, you know.” And then he realized what he was saying, too. We stared at each other in horror for a minute, and then looked over at the waiting car.

“What do we do?” I asked fearfully.

He didn’t look as confident as usual, but he rolled his shoulders back and stood up straighter. “Act like nothing’s wrong,” he instructed me. “It’s none of his business. Just keep telling yourself that, even if he’s a jerk. You glow, and you’re a total fox, and it’s none of his fucking business. Got it?”

I nodded and lifted my chin defiantly. I’d acted perfectly normal when I was out here earlier, and he hadn’t said anything _then_. Yes, he’d given me a weird look, but I thought that was just because I was asking him to wait ten minutes and he was kind of a dick. I just needed to act the same way I had then, and it’d all be fine. What could he really do to me, anyway? Nothing, that’s what. “Let’s get our bags,” I said, slipping my hand into his.

As we walked to Ford’s car, I held up a finger in the taxi’s direction, indicating (hopefully) that we needed just one more second. I was honestly amazed Ford hadn’t locked the Acura up when we went inside…though even if he had, Stan would have just brazenly charged back inside to demand his car keys, or picked the lock to get into the trunk. At any rate, we got lucky, and grabbing a couple of small travel bags from his trunk was quick and easy. Now for the hard part.

Stan was carrying the bags, so I tugged open the back door of the cab and slid all the way to the seat at the other end. Stan followed, taking the middle seat next to me rather than sticking the bags between us. I wondered if he knew how scared I was right now. Maybe it was silly of me, but there it was.

“Sorry about the wait,” I said to our driver as I buckled up.

He shrugged, not looking at me. “Hey, it’s your money. Holiday Inn?”

I nodded confirmation. “Yes, please.”

My hand found Stan’s again. He smiled encouragingly at me—which I could see, even in the back seat of a car at nighttime, because I couldn’t turn off my dubious superpower. _None of his fucking business_ , I repeated to myself in an internal mantra.

After a minute of silence that felt very uncomfortable (at least to me), the driver decided to get chatty. “Little late to be checking into a hotel,” he commented pleasantly. “You just get in or something?”

_None of your fucking business_ , I bristled, but told myself that wasn’t fair. He was just trying to make conversation. “We got in a few hours ago, but we were having a late dinner with family.” That was as much detail as he needed.

“Yeah no kidding late dinner, I used to work second shift and _I_ ate earlier than that!” His laugh somehow set my teeth on edge. “So whatcha in town for? This ain’t exactly Atlantic City.”

I’d _just_ said we were having dinner with family. Was he really so dumb he couldn’t figure out we were here to see them, or was he trying too hard to seem friendly? Uneasy, I nestled closer into Stan’s side. “Visiting family,” I said sharply, and fanned a yawn that was mostly for show before leaning my head into Stan’s shoulder. “Sleepy,” I mumbled into his neck.

He put his arm around me. “We’ll be there soon,” he told me, matching my tone.

That seemed to work for a while, but the hotel was still nowhere in sight when our driver started talking again. “So old man Pines, then, he was your family?” Stan stiffened, and I shot him a nervous look. Our driver glanced over his shoulder ever so slightly, gaging our response. “Ha, thought so. You look kinda like him. Sorry for your loss and all that.”

He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded…amused. Just slightly, sadistically amused. Nothing blatant enough that you could complain, but enough to get under your skin. I twitched, and Stan’s grip on my hand tightened painfully.

Neither of us said anything, but that didn’t phase the driver a bit. “My dad used to help him out sometimes. Used to be a handyman. Pines always used to keep trying to do everything himself until he screwed it up, then Dad came in to fix it. Didn’t even charge him sometimes, can you believe that? I guess he felt sorry for the old guy. I mean, his own kids took off on him, that’s gotta be rough. Not that they were ever worth much, the way he talked. Oh shit, that’s not _you_ , is it? I shouldn’ta said anything, sorry.”

Again, he didn’t sound sorry at all. He put in just enough sympathy into his tone that I could imagine exactly how a complaint call would go: I’m so sorry to hear that, we’ll look into it…he assures us he intended no offense…blah blah blah. If they even bothered responding.

Stan had let go of my hand so he could ball both his into tight fists. Yet he sounded totally casual when he spoke. “Your dad wasn’t Frank Crampelter, was he?”

“He _is_ ,” our driver exclaimed in saccharine delight. “Do you know him? What are the odds, man, I tell ya!”

“Nope, never heard of him,” Stan said blandly, crossing his arms over his chest. I felt the motion of him grabbing something out of his coat pocket, but couldn’t tell what it was.

“Ha,” the driver laughed mechanically. “You’re a riot! So tell me, what’s the deal with the light?”

I found it very hard to swallow suddenly. With as much of a low-key asshole as this guy was being, I’d successfully pushed my fear to the back of my mind. Now it leapt to the front again.

“What light?” Stan snapped, making no effort at all to be pleasant.

_None of his fucking business_ , I told myself. _None of his fucking business._

“What, are you dumb, or just blind? Your girlfriend, man. Or your wife. Daughter. Side-piece. Whatever, I don’t judge. She take a bath in glow paint?”

_None of his fucking business_ , I thought, biting the inside of my cheek

“None of your fucking business,” said Stan loudly, still with his arms crossed. I reached for his hand, and was able to see what he’d gotten from his pocket: he was wearing brass knuckles on his right hand now.

“Hey, no need to get rude,” the driver replied, sounding wounded. “I just can’t figure out why you’d be decked out like that for a funeral, unless you can’t help it. Are you, like, batgirl or something?” He directed the comment to me, clearly picking up on the fact that he’d pushed Stan too far.

I ground my teeth. “It’s a genetic condition. I really don’t want to discuss it, thanks.”

“Whoa, so you’re like that _all the time_? That’s messed up.”

“Really not looking to discuss it,” I said with a tight smile that wasn’t even _trying_ to be convincing. “I don’t want to be rude, but we’ve had a really long day and don’t feel like talking.”

“Fine, fine, I get it,” he said in that same not-really-apologetic tone. “Sorry. Just trying to be nice.”

I didn’t challenge him on that lie, instead resting my hand on top of Stan’s and squeezing gently. The warm line of brass along the bottom joint of his fingers was hard and reassuring. It reminded me, somehow, that no one was going to need to throw any punches. The guy was an asshole, alright, but not a threat.

Stan looked like he wanted to punch him anyway, so I held his hand as much to calm _him_ as to reassure myself. Thankfully the driver was smart enough to know that if he was any more of a dick than he already had been, there might be actual consequences. He kept his mouth shut until we reached our destination. I was still profoundly relieved when the hotel came into view; eight minutes across a town had never felt so long.

“Hey, I’m real sorry if I said something wrong,” the driver told us as he pulled up in front of the entrance. He sounded almost convincing in his sincerity this time. “I get too chatty sometimes, it’s a curse, you know?” He turned in his seat, giving us our first clear view of his face as he smiled at us. He had bright eyes, a wide face, and light hair with too much product in it.

I nodded curtly and pulled my phone out to complete payment for the ride. I tipped him, but less than I ordinarily would have. Stan remained by my side in the car, fists clenched, until after I got out of the vehicle—clearly he didn’t trust the guy enough to leave me alone in the vehicle for even a second. As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, he opened his door, grabbed our bags out, and slammed it behind him.

“Hey, lady,” the driver said suddenly, as we started walking away. I looked back, thinking I must have dropped something in the back seat. He jerked his head, inviting me to come closer. Whatever he wanted to say to me and not Stan, I had no interest in hearing it. I feigned a look of polite bewilderment and held onto Stan’s hand as we headed into the building.

As soon as we were inside, I heard Stan’s audible growl. “You’ve gotta be _kidding_ me,” he snarled, lifting his fist and staring at it as if looking for something to use it on. “All the drivers out there, and we get stuck in a car with Crampelter’s fucking kid?” He stared back out the glass doors, confirming that the taxi had pulled away. “The nerve of that jackass! I’d like to deck him one, or two…”

I put a quelling hand on his shoulder. “I kinda would, too. But he’s gone, no harm done.”

“No harm?” Stan paced back toward the doors angrily. “You saw what he tried at the last minute there, right? He was gonna try and get your number!”

“No he _wasn’t_!” I protested, more shocked and repulsed by the idea than anything. “He probably just wanted to apologize again, or something.”

“Apologize? Gimme a break.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Crampelter’s kid. Little shit.”

I took his hand, slowly winding my fingers between his until the fist began to relax. “He absolutely was. But it’s okay. You protected me, you know that? I was ready to panic, but you told me what to do and you stood up for me. Thanks.” I pulled his hand to my mouth, kissing the small scar along the back, and looked up at him adoringly. “You make me feel safe.”

“Yeah?” He still looked pissed, but the expression was starting to soften into irritation. And I wouldn’t have blamed him for being livid. I’d just rather not have him livid in the lobby of a Holiday Inn. “Let’s see about getting our room, okay? Tomorrow’s going to be busy, and I’d like to get some sleep at _some_ point.”

“I guess.” He let me lead him toward the reception area, but not without another angry look through the doors toward where the car had been. “Crampelter’s _fucking_ kid,” he muttered.

I squeezed his hand. “I’d let you deck him, you know. If I wasn’t worried about you getting arrested. He’s not worth it, honey.”

“Yeah.” He shook out his other fist, which had still been clenched. “I guess you’re right.” Stan paused, and looked at me. “I really make you feel safe?”

I rolled my eyes and grinned. “Forgive me sounding like a teenager, but…duh?”

He cracked a tiny smile, and I knew it was going to be alright.

*

_Alright_ was a kind description for how the rest of the night went. If you could even call it night by then—it was closer to 2am when we finally got to our hotel room and collapsed. The bed was comfortable, and there was something ever so slightly exotic about sharing a hotel room together (it only dawned on me _now_ that despite being together almost half a year, we had never gone anywhere as a couple), but we were too physically drained and emotionally keyed up to really enjoy it. Stan was still bristling from our ride, so I turned on the tv to some CSI drama and convinced him to strip down to his boxers for a massage.

That part went reasonably well, though he was carrying enough tension to make my hands start to cramp up before I managed to make much of a dent. Still, it was quiet and intimate enough to make me content and sleepy, and the unpleasant emotions he’d been telegraphing softened under my touch. He left the table lamp on and kept watching the crappy show afterward, but I curled up against his side and started dreaming almost at once.

An hour or so later he nudged me gently awake to see if I was interested in making better use of the hotel bed. I was, but it wound up being an exercise in futility and frustration. Given how tiring the day had been and how much he had on his mind, that wouldn’t have been surprising even if we _hadn’t_ already crossed the finish line just a few hours before. And while it was rare, this was not the first time it had ever happened, either. That was probably for the best, since he reacted to the difficulty exactly as he had on previous occasions: as though his body had betrayed him and the world was personally attacking his masculinity. As a result I was able to say the proper things to reinflate at least his ego, and eventually we both got some sleep in. But it wasn’t the perfect way to end the day, either.

So when Stan tried to wake me up about four hours later (which, let’s not forget, wasn’t even dawn according to my body’s internal clock), I didn’t take it well.

“He’s dead,” I grumbled unsympathetically as I stumbled into the shower with my eyes still mostly closed. “He’s not gonna get any _less_ dead from us getting an extra hour of sleep, is he?”

“That’d be one for the books, wouldn’t it?” Stan chuckled wearily. “He gets back out of the coffin to tell me I’m worthless one last time.”

A sense of guilt woke me up a little more, though I’d have killed for a tall mug of Stan’s insanely strong coffee to help it along. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a bitch. I’m supposed to be here to _help_.” I let out a sigh that quickly turned into a giant yawn. “Just tired.”

“Yeah, me too. Why’d I have to tell Ford we’d be back at nine?”

“Cause you love him, I guess?” I groped around for one of those tiny shampoo bottles and pried my eyes open to make sure I’d seized the right one.

“Sure but _nine_?” Yawns were contagious around here this morning; even over the running water I could hear his. He followed it with a groan. “What did we _do_ last night? I hurt everywhere.”

I wiped water from my face and peeked out from behind the shower curtain. He was standing in front of the sink with soap and a razor, but he’d paused to rub at his lower back.

“We leaned over about a hundred boxes, remember?” I got the words out before another yawn interfered. My shoulders were tight, too, though the hot water was helping a bit. “Just be glad we didn’t try to _sleep_ in your bed there.”

At least that comment triggered a memory he liked. I saw his eyes brighten before he picked the razor back up. I ducked back into my shower. I was always sad to see the perpetual stubble that covered half his face shorn away into smooth skin, but he had good reason to make himself presentable today. We were burying his father, after all.

And, as he’d told me when he nudged me until I opened my eyes this morning, we had plenty to do before the burial started. As we’d seen the previous day, Ford was way behind on cleaning up their old home. What I hadn’t realized when I was helping them poke through boxes was that it needed to be presentable by this afternoon. Why neither of them had mentioned that at the time was honestly beyond me, which was part of the reason I was irritated now. If I’d known a bunch of strangers were going to be spending the evening sitting shiva there tonight, I might have prioritized getting things out of the living room.

Up until the plane ride yesterday, I hadn’t even known the Pines were Jewish. To be fair, Stan was about as religious as I was—which is to say, not remotely—so it hadn’t really come up and didn’t particularly matter. But it did make a difference in terms of helping prepare for a funeral. A local group from the synagogue had been supervising and preparing the body while Ford drove in and took care of all the more practical details. There wasn’t going to be a big funeral, thankfully, but there was still more than enough for two out-of-state estranged sons to deal with. I was glad at least someone involved seemed to know what they were doing. But naturally these volunteers felt they should come by the home and offer sympathy after the burial, per tradition.

Stan was not big on the idea of ordering another ride after last night, but one quick phone call to Ford was enough to convince us he was too frantic to pick us up. Stan grumbled about how he should have rented a car while I jotted down a list of cleaning supplies and sent in a fresh taxi request. Luckily it was a perfectly nice, quiet younger man who answered the call this time, and he was happy to take us to a store and wait outside while I grabbed the stuff I thought we’d need. I made him stop at a coffee shop, too. It was 9:10 by the time we made it to the house, but I was fairly sure I’d be doing most of the work here and I damn sure wanted caffeine to do it.

At least I had music to clean to. Stan dragged the eight-track player out into the living room despite Ford’s protests, and listening to the classics he kept pausing to select really did brighten my mood. I spent an hour scrubbing the kitchen while the men hauled all the stray boxes and papers into the bedrooms. I found a container of reasonably fresh coffee grounds while I was at it, so I set Stan to brewing up a pot while Ford dusted and I swept. Eventually we got around to vacuuming the rug and wiping down the floorboards. I wondered what on earth they would have done if I hadn’t insisted on coming with Stan. While they weren’t exactly _hopeless_ at cleaning (Ford was actually pretty good), I didn’t get the impression they’d ever done a thorough spring cleaning, either. Whereas I regularly had to clean up after teenagers.

I didn’t feel great about bossing them around, but things were getting accomplished. The bathroom came last, and was about as enjoyable an experience as I’d expected it to be. Rather than “get in my way,” Stan helped Ford cover all the mirrors in the house and chose a few photo albums to leave out on the coffee table. But after that I finally got my cup of Stan-made super strength coffee, and all was right with the world. If I’d had more time I would have tackled the bedrooms as well, but presumably no one would try to go in there while mourning.

I needed another shower after all that. This time Ford drove us, so that we could all head on to the cemetery together. I tried to clean myself up as quickly as possible, and emerged from the bathroom to hear Ford briefing Stan on who they could expect to see at the burial. Given he’d lived almost a century, Filbrick didn’t have any contemporaries clamoring to attend, but it sounded as though a few people from the assisted care facility might make it out. He didn’t have much in the way of family, either; Dipper and Mabel’s father hadn’t been able to make it out here from California on short notice, and Sherman’s widow wasn’t in good enough health to travel, so it was just us. And then of course, the volunteers and members of the local Jewish community who had known him.

Given the weather, I had to dry my hair completely before going outside, and the sound of the blow-dryer whited out any other conversation I might have overheard. When I finished pulling my hair back with a simple, respectable clip, they’d moved on to another topic. Ford was expressing some concern about Stan being present for any longer than the burial itself required, because obviously if both of them were there some people were bound to reach the proper conclusion about who he was.

Stan, in typical fashion, completely dismissed the concerns—just as he’d done when I raised them on the way to the house earlier. “Oh come on,” he’d said to me this morning. “These people can’t even remember what they had for _breakfast,_ they’re not gonna remember _me._ ” Besides, he’d argued, most of the people in Glass Shard Beach wouldn’t even know he’d been banned from the state for running a scam in Newark forty years ago. And if they’d heard about his “death” they would just assume it had been a mistake at the time. No one would think to call the cops on him, especially not when he was here mourning his dad. He seemed very confident about all of it, and Ford didn’t put up a fight.

Both of them had put suits on while I was sequestered in the bathroom. I’d seen Stan in his plenty of times, since he routinely wore it to work at the Mystery Shack, but I’d never seen him with a proper tie before. I’d bet even money that Ford had loaned it to him, but it looked nice. Ford himself, of course, looked very proper right down to the cufflinks, yarmulke already in place on his gray hair. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Stan as I pulled a tan wrap over my sedate navy dress, wondering where his was. Still in animated discussion with Ford, he missed my silent question completely.

I pulled on my dress shoes and cleared my throat. “You guys ready?” Ford nodded stoically. Stan rolled his shoulders back. I grabbed my purse and slipped my hand into his. “Okay. Any time you need me to butt out, just say so, alright? Last thing I want is to get in the way.”

“You’re not,” Stan told me vehemently, and squeezed my hand.

Ford gave me a weak smile as he opened the door for us. “Quite the contrary, you’ve been an enormous help.”

I squirmed. “I’m glad. But I’m not family, so…” I trailed off with a shrug. Ford raised his eyebrows as if he wanted to argue with that statement, but when Stan stayed quiet he kept his mouth shut too.

“Just stick by me,” Stan told me quietly as we headed down the hotel hallway to the exit.

“Always,” I said without thinking. He nodded, looking straight ahead.

The drive to the funeral home was practically silent. I sat in the back seat again, feeling like a third wheel, looking between the two men and trying to read their faces. After a few minutes of driving, Stan produced a folded yarmulke from one of the hidden pockets in his suit and toyed with it in his hands until Ford shot him a glare. At that point he unfolded it, stuck it on his head, and muttered “I haven’t worn this thing since our Bar Mitzvah. You remember?”

Ford gave a fractional smile and bobbed his head.

Whatever had happened at (or after) their bar mitzvah, I wasn’t going to be privy to it today. I satisfied myself with imagining the twins at thirteen. It wasn’t too difficult, since I’d gotten a peek at the photo albums back in the house. The early teen years weren’t kind to anyone…but the image made me smile to myself anyway.

I glanced nervously to Stan as we got out of the car at the funeral home. He held his hand out to me wordlessly, and I could see his throat working as he fought against a well of feeling. I took it and tried not to feel out of place and awkward as we were led into a room with a simple wooden coffin. Ford nodded to the woman who had been seated just inside the doorway, and she nodded back before getting to her feet and taking her leave. Just the three of us for this part.

Stan paced back and forth, looking at the casket as though it were a wild animal that might bite him. Ford walked over to it, fidgeting nervously before bowing his head and going still. Whatever he had to say, he wasn’t saying it out loud.

“If you wanna spit on him, Teegs,” Stan said suddenly in a rough voice, “now’s your chance.”

I covered my mouth, horrified. I’d joked about it, sure, and the trip hadn’t done much to convince me that Filbrick Pines didn’t deserve it. But to actually contemplate _doing_ it, _here_ , was too much. I shook my head slowly with my hand still over my mouth. “I…no, I can’t.”

He nodded, looking wounded and as if this was exactly what he’d expected. He glanced down at his suit, spread his arms, and stepped forward. “You remember this suit?” he asked, in a voice that felt far too loud for the room. “This was yours. You gave it to _Ford_.” Beside him, his brother flinched but didn’t protest. Stan put a steadying hand on his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Not me. Never me. Cause I was an _embarrassment_. Cause I was _dumb_ , and _weak_. Cause I cost you a _fortune_ —that was never yours, anyhow! You blame me for riding on his coattails, well what about you? Mom’s the one who raised us and Shermie’s the one that actually looked out for us, what did _you_ do? Huh? At least _I_ cared about Sixer _before_ some big shot told me he could make money! I didn’t _need_ anyone to tell me he was a genius! So yeah, I screwed up. Maybe I coulda fixed it, if I’d had the chance. But you never gave me a chance cause the bottom line was you didn’t care.” He jabbed his finger angrily at the coffin, then let his hand fall.

Ford hugged him. I stood back, looking around for a tissue, not wanting to interfere. When Ford released him, I stepped in to take his place, leading Stan back from the coffin and passing him a tissue. His face was pink, and he removed his glasses to blow his nose loudly and blot his eyes. “I’m fine,” he told me in a tone that was both angry and defeated.

I nodded and held him close. “I know.”

*

It seemed to me that Stan’s mood improved after the outburst. It was hard to say for certain, because he had enough decorum to refrain from cracking jokes in the hearse, but his eyes seemed clearer than they had in the lead-up to it. I was glad he’d gotten it off his chest, at any rate. And I was very glad I was here to hold his hand.

There were already people in the cemetery when we climbed out of the hearse. Uncertainly, I moved to join them as several men from the crowd moved forward to help the Pines lift the casket out and carry it. I certainly felt conspicuous, standing amongst half a dozen people I’d never even seen before and watching the procession of a coffin carrying someone I hadn’t known. But everybody there was solemn and respectful, asking me no questions. Once it had been lowered into the ground, I crept back up to join Stan.

We stood sedately through a series of prayers and Bible verses read by other people, and I remained silent through a long Hebrew chant that I didn’t understand but clearly packed a lot of meaning. With my head bowed solemnly, I glanced around the rest of the assembled crowd through my lashes. There were several old men standing near the foot of the grave, accompanied by a younger woman who might have been a nurse or daughter to one of them (though then again, that could be exactly what people thought _I_ was, so who knew). I wondered if one of those men was the infamous Crampelter. He sounded like the sort of man who _would_ have the nerve to turn up, if he could make it out of the home. And if not, I wondered who they _were_ —had Filbrick actually had friends?

The prayer ended, and someone stepped up to pass Ford a shovel. He nodded thanks, stared into the grave for a minute, then let out a deep breath and hefted some soil onto the lid of the coffin. He passed the shovel to Stan, who took it after only a second’s hesitation and repeated the gesture. They passed it back and forth several times, until a thin layer of dirt covered the wooden surface. I put a hand on Stan’s arm, and he gave me the tiniest of smiles as he met my eyes.

After that things wrapped up fairly quickly. A few more prayers, a few murmured condolences, and Ford collectively thanked everyone and informed that he was returning to his father’s house to begin mourning. We escaped to the hearse, which would get us back to the funeral home where we’d left the black Acura.

Ford was extremely composed the entire car ride, which Stan seemed to interpret as grief because he put an arm around him and sat quietly. I realized I’d left my purse inside the funeral home, leaving me nothing to fidget with, so I patted Stan’s knee supportively and stared out the window. When we got there I kissed him on the cheek, told him I needed to pee and grab my purse, and ran into the building.

I greeted the employee I passed on the way in, and she directed me to the facilities. I rid my bladder of most of the coffee I’d drank earlier, washed up, and checked my hair quickly before heading down the hall to the room I’d left my purse in.

“Hey, you’re the lady who was here earlier,” an unfamiliar man hailed me.

I turned and cocked my head. “Yes…?”

He grinned. “You’re looking for your purse, right?” I nodded, returning his smile. “We needed the room, so I moved it to the office,” he told me. “This way.”

I followed him to the end of the hall, passing him as he gestured me through a doorway. I looked around for my purse but didn’t see it. I started to turn around and ask him _where_ they’d stashed it, but turning around is difficult with something cold and circular pressed into the small of your back. Which, apparently as of right now, was something I had.

Which was almost certainly a gun. I’d never _had_ one pressed into the small of my back before, so it was difficult to say for sure, but what else was going to be cold, hard, round, and about the size of a quarter? Quarters, I suppose. But why would someone be pressing a quarter into my back?

Then again, why would someone be pressing a _gun_ into my back? I wasn’t famous, I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t coming perilously close to solving a crime, I didn’t even _live_ here. It was _possible_ that Stan or Ford had an enemy dangerous enough to want to hurt me to get at them, but given I’d barely been in town a day it seemed unlikely. Besides, Stan and Ford were _also_ here, so if someone wanted to hurt them couldn’t they just…go after _them_? Not that I wanted that, but I wasn’t real comfortable with the current situation, either.

Apparently my assailant had expected me to do something other than freeze and overthink things, because he pushed the gun into my back harder. “Stay quiet,” a man’s voice told me, very close to my ear. “Turn left, and keep walking down the hall.”

“I don’t want to,” I said in a very small voice.

“I said shut up,” he snarled at me. “I’ll fucking shoot you if you don’t shut up.”

That seemed unlikely. I took a deep breath that was supposed to be calming, but instead I nearly choked on it. A giant bubble of panic was rising inside me, blocking off half my airflow.

“I said move,” he repeated, pushing me with the barrel. And he’d seemed so nice when he was pretending to work here, damn it. Or _did_ he work here? If he did, and I shouted for help, then I really was fucked. But if he didn’t, then maybe he was just bluffing, and if I bolted or yelled he’d run away instead.

Clearly, I’d spent too long standing there like a deer staring at an oncoming truck. “Listen, you dumb cunt,” he said levelly, inches from my ear, “come with me _now_ , or I’m going to choke you out and then shoot your fucking kneecaps off.”

Well, _that_ got my feet moving. I could barely feel them; everything aside from the spot where the gun touched my back seemed to have gone numb. He walked me down the hall and out a back door I hadn’t known about without me making so much as a peep because my body had gone numb and my mind kept throwing up useless suggestions and scenarios and questions that didn’t provide any better options. There was an old Chevy waiting behind the building. Alarm bells started going off in my head then, but they seemed very detached and distant compared to the round bruise I was going to have on my back.

Assuming I made it out of this alive.

There was no one else on the street, since hanging around funeral homes wasn’t the most popular of activities. I was tempted to run for it now that we were out in the open, but couldn’t persuade my body to cooperate. I _knew_ the smartest thing I could do was run for it. That the further I got from them the lower their chances of shooting me somewhere essential, if they even dared fire at all. But all that knowledge was no match for the stark terror of having a gun against my back. My head told me to run, but all my instincts were telling me to play along nicely and extend my life as long as possible.

Someone stepped out of the driver’s seat. A tall, broad man with blonde hair, about my own age. He looked different in daylight—or maybe it was just that this time, he wasn’t even trying to be pleasant.

“This is her, right?” the man behind me asked almost anxiously.

The driver’s eyes swept over me once, and he nodded. “You thought I’d point you to the wrong one?”

The gun against my back twitched in a way that made me think my captor had shrugged. “She looks _normal_.”

“Course she does. It’s daytime.” He walked around the back of the vehicle, opening the trunk and grabbing something from inside it. My captor pushed me closer to the open trunk, and I knew if I let them get me in there, Stan was going to be attending _my_ funeral next.

That thought managed to override the terrifying numbness. It pulled my mind off the immediacy of what was happening to me right now and consider what was going to happen to the people I loved if I didn’t display at least a little bit of self-preservation here. Stan probably _wouldn’t_ go to my funeral—because he’d never know what had happened to me, which was even worse. Dave and Nicky would have lost both parents, orphans now in a town they’d only just moved to. Their grandparents would take care of them, but it’d mean _another_ move, and they’d be hurting, too. Our house would get sold, and the new owners would likely either ignore Horace or exorcise him outright.

This wasn’t just about me. And I was stronger than instinct. I flicked my eyes to the right, established that there was nothing but an empty backstreet, and moved my ass. I twisted right and sprinted at the same time, stumbling and propelling myself forward anyway. “HELP!” I screamed frantically with all the breath I could spare as I ran for the end of the building. No one had fired behind me yet, that had to be a good sign. I shouted it again as I approached the corner, adrenaline making my legs move faster than they normally could.

Something hit me in the back, knocking me forward off my feet and onto the pavement. I got my hands under me just in time to avoid cracking my head on the ground, but my left hip connected hard and so did my knees. I didn’t even feel the burn of my skinned palms until someone was already pulling them behind my back. I fought back, trying get my feet under me enough to crawl forward, but whoever had my arms yanked them upward as far as they’d go and planted two knees on my back. I heard the shrieking rip of duct tape a moment before its tight stickiness circled my wrists. I screamed again, hoping someone in the front of the building could hear it. The tape went around my wrists another time before ripping again, and then I was flipped onto my back so abruptly that I was still blinking in confusion when they plastered a piece of tape over my mouth.

“Shut _up_ , bitch,” the driver snarled, and tugged me roughly to my feet by grabbing my shoulder. I tried to twist free once I was standing, but he dug his fingers in and hung on, hauling me back toward the car. I thought that going limp might buy me some time, and maybe it did. It also got my left hip smacked into the pavement again. I winced but stayed down until they grabbed me by the hair and yanked me upward. Suddenly I couldn’t get back upright quick enough.

It sounds dramatic and complicated, but I’m sure the whole thing was over in under a minute. I was half shoved, half thrown into the open trunk, the skirt of my dress hiking up and bunching uncomfortably under me. It slammed shut, muting the noise from outside the vehicle, but I heard what was either someone speaking angrily close by, or someone _shouting_ angrily from further away. Distantly, I heard the doors of the car slam shut and felt the engine purr to life. It seemed like the car peeled off quickly, but I had never been in a trunk before and it was difficult to be sure.

Bound and thrown in a trunk, now where had I heard this scenario before…oh right, my own fantasies. That was some pretty cruel irony. Only a few weeks ago I’d been walking through a sexy rendition of this with my boyfriend and thinking it was the hottest thing ever. I couldn’t beat myself up for it, exactly, because what had made the fantasy fun was _trust_. I’d been able to enjoy feeling powerless because I knew Stan would never let any serious harm come to me. It wasn’t like I’d asked for _this_. The irony really was pretty terrific, though.

I was cold, my left hip and knee ached in a deep and distracting way, a lock of my hair was caught in the tape they’d used to silence me, my arms were trapped at a seriously uncomfortable angle for lying down in any way…this was not going down as one of the greatest days in my life. If I could make my brain and body cooperate, though, maybe it wouldn’t be one of the _last_ days in my life. As far as I could see, I had three things going for me right now.

First, I’d had a chance to make a scene before they got me in the trunk. It was possible someone had seen enough to reach the proper conclusion, maybe even got a description of the car or one of the assailants. Their police force was probably at least _marginally_ competent—and even if they weren’t, Stan was better at solving mysteries than he gave himself credit for.

Second, my inconvenient superpower was coming in handy here. I might not be able to talk or move worth a damn, but I could see my surroundings just fine. Right now all it was showing me was my own feet and an otherwise empty trunk, but being able to see definitely beat the alternative.

And third, I knew _why_ I’d been abducted now. The driver was that asshole from last night, Crampelter. He’d seen me at nighttime, and scoffed at his friend for thinking I looked normal in the light of day. I had no idea what value they thought my bioluminescence _had,_ but none of the possibilities that presented themselves struck me as particularly tempting. On the plus side, I couldn’t see how my being dead would increase my value, which explained why they’d tackled me rather than take a shot. They were hoping to sell me—how, to who, and for what were all unpleasant questions I didn’t have answers to—and that meant they needed to keep me alive and intact.

Keep me alive. A far less useful and optimistic thought occurred to me: I didn’t have my pills. The morons had no concept of what would happen to me if I didn’t take those pills every day, and they were likely to see any attempts to explain it as a ploy to escape. _Please, you have to go back to the hotel room where my boyfriend is probably freaking out and get this very specific bottle of pills before you sell me on the black market, or you’re going to be trying to sell a pile of ash._ Yeah, I wouldn’t believe me, either. By the time my skin got hot enough to convince them it was true, who knew if I’d even still be in Jersey—or if my pills would.

The fact that I had an internal clock ticking and the men who had abducted me had no idea was not a bit reassuring. I tried not to let it panic me, but I felt a fresh wave of anxiety rise up in my throat. Bile coated the back of my mouth and pulling in enough air through my nose seemed like a steep challenge suddenly. My brain just started looping frantic thoughts around and around as my heart galloped all over my chest.

It was exhausting. Helpfully, my hip decided to pipe up and complain about how much it hurt, too. Thanks, hip. So thoughtful. One more thing to loop into the cycle of nasty thoughts going through my head. I tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but this wasn’t exactly the back seat of Stan’s El Diablo. I didn’t have room to stretch out or sit up, and rolling was pretty challenging without either of those options. Eventually I shifted to my right side, facing outside so that as soon someone opened the trunk I’d be able to see out. That had the added benefit of relieving some of the pressure on my hip, if not my bound arms. It also cleared my head slightly.

I kicked my pumps off, wishing I’d worn stilettos so I’d have something to use as a weapon, and started twisting my wrists. There wasn’t much give, and any progress I did make was heralded by the sharp little pain of tiny body hairs ripping out, but it was better than lying there panicking. I also studied the inside of the trunk more seriously, wondering if I could kick out a taillight without cutting my foot to shreds. Now I wished I’d left my pumps _on_ , but that ship had sailed.

You know what? Fuck it, I was going to try anyway. The car was still moving, so if I crammed my foot through a taillight there was a fair chance another driver on the road would notice. In fact, if I cut myself in the process it was probably _more_ likely to attract attention. Win-win.

Sadly, it didn’t take me long to figure out that there was a piece of solid plastic covering the taillights. I remembered hearing somewhere that you were supposed to try to kick out the lights, but nothing about having to remove a thick sheet of molded plastic first. I’d stubbed a toe and gotten sore heels but wasn’t making a dent. Without the use of my hands, I was back to square one. Nearly crying in frustration, I went back to wiggling my wrists around behind my butt and ripping out arm hair.

Eventually, the car stopped. I tried telling myself that was a good thing, because we couldn’t have gone further than the edges of town in the span of time we’d been moving. But it was really hard to _believe_ it was a good thing, when I was just as helpless and screwed as I’d been when I went into the trunk. I heard voices outside the car, and tried furiously to think of something useful I could do if they opened the trunk.

They opened the trunk. I blinked at the daylight and shivered as the cold air hit me. Two men stared down at me. One was blonde, broad, probably over forty, with a wide face and too much product in his hair. The other was younger, darker, and smoother-looking; he’d struck me as friendly in the funeral home, but now he looked more like mobster. I stared back at them, desperately hating the fact that there was _nothing_ I could do at the moment. They could haul me out of the trunk and move me somewhere better. They could haul me out of the trunk and move me somewhere worse. They could leave me where I was, set the car on fire, and walk away. I had never felt so trapped and so useless in my life.

Behind them, I could see what looked like an empty field of some sort. I didn’t even know they had unpopulated areas in Jersey. Not encouraging. I would have dearly loved to ask a few questions and maybe share a few choice words, but they didn’t seem to want my participation in the conversation.

“See? She’s fine,” said the blonde one—Crampelter’s kid, boy was Stan ever right about that family.

The younger one looked me over appraisingly before producing a phone from his pocket. He snapped a few pictures of me on it from various angles. I mumbled urgently into the tape and tried to meet his eyes so that he’d have to realize I was a fucking _person_ , but he deftly avoided my gaze. “We’ll have to get some better pictures later, when it’s dark.” He poked the screen of his phone and scratched the side of his nose. “Right now we’re just showing him we have _someone_. Pretty fucking useless.”

“Trust me, it’s worth the trouble,” Crampelter told him confidently. “It’s what, two hours till it starts getting dark?”

The young guy reached toward me, and I tried again to get him to listen. “I have _kids_ ,” I said, though of course it just came out as a bunch of muffled humming. He touched my face above the tape with his fingernail, and I flinched as he dragged it along my skin. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but the way he touched me was terrifying and repugnant.

He brought his hand back to his face, examining the fingernail with interest. “Not paint, anyway,” he remarked, sounding vaguely approving.

“I _told_ you,” Crampelter nearly snarled, “she said it was genetic, some shit like that.”

The other guy raised his eyebrows austerely. “You think I can just take your _word_ for it? I’ve gotta inspect the merch personally.” He reached out again, taking my chin in his hand and tipping my head from side to side.

“My name’s Teagan,” I tried again, futilely. He did nothing more than smirk slightly at my attempts to speak. At this rate, I’d be burning up before they even bothered to take the damn tape off! Not that it would matter—the duct tape would probably start melting off on its own at that point.

I was _not_ still going to be here in a week. Fuck that, no way. And I wasn’t starting to cry right now, either.

Damn it.

“She’s not bad, you know?” The asshole moved a hand down to briefly cup my breast before proceeding down over the curve of my bruised hip. “I dunno if he’ll care or not, but maybe we can shoot for a higher price.” His hand went all the way down to the hem of my dress, and he tugged it up to my stomach. I was wearing nylons, but they’d be easy enough to remove if he wanted to. Fear and revulsion pumped through every one of my veins as I attempted to cringe away, shaking my head rapidly.

Crampelter laughed and smacked his friend on the back. “She thinks you wanna _sample_ the merchandise, Rich! Look, she’s freaking out!”

After a last cursory glance, Rich let go of my dress and wiped his hand off on the front of his pants. “I’m not into freaks,” he said in tones of mild disgust.

Crampelter was less subtle, still laughing to himself as he looked right at me. “Hey, cut her some slack, the guy she was with last night looked like he was eighty. She’s probably desperate.”

_He’s not even seventy, you fucktard_ , I thought, anger burning up some of my fear.

“See? She’s disappointed now.”

“Mike, don’t toy with the merch.” Rich all but rolled his eyes. “If she really glows, you’ll get your cut of the sale. That’s it.” He slammed the trunk shut on me again.

*

I was grateful for the taunting, honestly. Being angry was more useful than feeling victimized. And while being dismissed as “merch” and a “freak” wasn’t great for my ego, it was definitely preferable to getting raped. As soon as their voices faded, I went back to work on my wrists with a vengeance.

It was awful. The skin on my wrists became raw and the muscles in my arms kept cramping up. I tried lifting my arms back as far as I could and slamming them quickly against my butt, hoping the impact would make the tape snap, but either it wasn’t worn thin enough or my butt was too soft. I kept trying various flexes and wiggles, gritting my teeth through the increasing pain, but every few minutes it would become too much and I’d have to stop. But it was just a respite. The tape had rolled up some, and I could move my wrists back and forth better than I’d been able to before, so I wasn’t going to give up.

Besides, it gave me something to focus on other than how cold I was or what I was going to do when my wrists were free. It had looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, there were two strong men out there with a gun, and my phone was still in my purse back at the funeral home. Also, my chances of running into the field and hiding there were pretty low since, as previously mentioned, I glowed in the dark.

My best hope was that they’d head to a different location without opening the trunk and noticing my hands were free. Or alternatively, that they’d just walk away from the car to…I don’t know, pee in the field or something. Whatever assholes did while keeping abducted small-town moms in their trunk.

I went back to wearing away both the duct tape and the skin on my wrists. Wait a minute. I wasn’t just a small-town mom. I wasn’t even just a _bioluminescent_ small-town mom. I was _Teagan Fucking Kettle!_ I slammed my wrists violently against my ass while pulling outward as hard as I could. I was _Stanley Pines’ girlfriend, damn it!_ Again. I was _in love with a conman!_ Again. He’d _taught me how to pick locks for fun!_ Again. He’d tried to _teach me to fight!_ Again.

The tape snapped, coming apart so abruptly that one hand flew out and smacked the metal side of the trunk. I hissed a string of curses and pulled the injured hand close to me, but the fact that I _could_ pull it close to me was not getting overlooked. I was free. I rubbed my hand indulgently for a few seconds, examining it for cuts, before pulling the piece of tape off my mouth.

I allowed myself a few indulgent minutes to lie there feeling relieved and examining my injuries in silence. About four inches of my skin was scraped raw on the inside of each wrist, and a nasty scab had formed on my knee from my fall earlier. My hip and the back of my hand were bruised, but nothing worse. Excellent.

I rolled carefully onto my hands and knees, exploring the inside of the trunk. I’d been lying on top of an inset metal circle that looked like it was meant to turn. I turned it and pulled upward. The spare wheel well. Complete with a spare tire and jack.

Jackpot. A girl could do a lot with a jack, a free range of motion, and the element of surprise.

I didn’t _like_ the plan I was forming. It was risky, not a bet I’d have willingly taken in better circumstances. And I’d have to hurt people, which I was generally opposed to—hell, I didn’t even like using live worms for fishing! But, I asked myself, what was the alternative? Not good, that’s what. I’d take my chances with the risky plan.

Waiting was the hardest part. The weather had been slightly better today than yesterday, but it was still mid-November, and the trunk wasn’t heated. I’d lost my wrap in the scuffle behind the funeral home, and as it got closer to sunset the temperature dropped. I shifted my position frequently so that my muscles didn’t seize up, and regularly stuck my hands between my thighs for heat. It was still above freezing, but I was shivering and filled with hatred for the people who had put me in this situation.

_No_ consideration for _anyone_ else. It was despicable! Their casual ability to write me off as a human being. The brazenness of abducting someone in broad daylight. Knowing I was here to accompany Stan to a funeral, and grabbing me immediately after the burial anyway. Who _did_ that? Who had that sort of brazen disregard for other people? I liked to believe there was good in everybody, at least a little, and generally I gave people the benefit of the doubt. But there wasn’t a lot of room for that in my aching shoulders and numb fingers right now.

After what felt like (and probably was) hours, I heard voices again. I pulled some deep, calming breaths in through my nose and flexed my fingers. I couldn’t afford to botch this. I couldn’t be the meek little secretary who baked cookies for half the neighborhood. I had to be the badass bitch who…well, quite frankly, who I’d never been before.

This was such a bad idea.

I got my feet under me as I heard a lock click, tightening my grip on the car jack and waiting in a tense crouch. The second a slice of dark sky opened up beyond the trunk, I shoved it open as hard as I could. I’d been hoping someone would be standing close enough to get hit, but they were still both standing upright when my vision locked onto Rich. His eyes were wide, but that was the only thing betraying that I’d managed to surprise him. One of his hands moved quickly and automatically to his side, and I stuck out with the jack, the metal connecting with his shoulder hard enough to make both of us grunt.

I capitalized on my advantage, adjusting my grip on the jack and swinging it into his arm again as hard as I could. Was I breathing? The adrenaline was pumping so hard in me I wasn’t sure I was breathing. The world had narrowed down to nothing but the two men in front of me. Rich was still standing, and reached for his gun with his left hand instead. His eyes flashed with anger or pain.

I hit him in the face.

He dropped to his knees, a thick line of blood running from his hairline down his nose. I jumped out of the trunk, swinging wildly at Mike as he tried to grab me, and smashed it into Rich’s head again. He dropped, and I didn’t hesitate to land a hit with the jack squarely on his right hand. Still conscious, he started swearing at me, and tried to grab my throat with his left hand. My adrenaline-heightened instincts told me Mike was behind me, and I spun around as I lurched back, catching him in the side with a less powerful blow. It was still enough to persuade him to step further away from me.

I could see the holster at Rich’s waist, and went for it. He grabbed my shoulder, groping closer to my neck, but I pushed forward against it and got my hands on the gun. I didn’t remember how to check if the safety was on or off, so I pistol-whipped him with it instead, cracking it into his bleeding temple with all my strength. The grip he’d gotten on the collar of my dress slackened, and when I knocked it away it fell limply beside him.

Oh—I _was_ breathing. I could hear myself panting from exertion, along with the blood pounding in my ears. It would have been nice to catch my breath and congratulate myself, but instead I had to deal with Mike grabbing my hair and yanking me backward so that I sprawled on my ass and almost lost my grip on the gun. I hung onto it, but it was close enough to terrify me. I still had the jack in my other hand, and swung it blindly behind me, hoping to connect. Instead, he released my hair and grabbed onto the jack. Fuck.

I tugged it forward, throwing all my strength into it, and then abruptly released it. He fell back a step from the sudden lack of resistance, and I used that second to scramble forward. I got all the way back to my feet and ran, hard, still clutching the gun.

I was never much of a runner, and I could hear him gaining on me. I tried to collect my scrambled thoughts as I pelted forward. Carrying a gun with the safety off was just stupid. Rich had struck me as cruel, but not stupid. I fumbled with the safety as I ran, pushing it into the opposite position of the one it had been in. Then I turned, took a deep breath, and as soon as Mike came close enough to my light to see him clearly, I fired a shot at his leg. I missed, but it had definitely fired. Mike immediately stopped running.

Maybe I should have turned and started running again then. But I didn’t see his hands go up in surrender until I was already squeezing the trigger a second, third, and forth time; I was so amped up that I fired two more times than I’d intended. He was lucky I was aiming low; we were close enough range that even with my shaking hands, several of them connected. I heard him scream and watched him drop to the ground, clutching at his knee. I saw the front of one knee and the other thigh start to darken. None of it felt remotely real.

And then I was running again. I ran in the direction the car had come from, pelting through the darkness so fast I probably left a streak of light behind me. I ran through silence and dark, and after a while I was able to process the fact that no one was behind me. That didn’t mean no one would come for me. I hadn’t killed either of them, and they’d had cell phones. They were probably calling up their friends right now, telling them to come down whatever road this was and find the glowing woman. It wouldn’t be hard.

My adrenaline—and subsequently my pace—was starting to fade, but that thought gave me a fresh burst. If I kept following this road I had to make it back to town eventually, right?

Even with the adrenaline, I was starting to flag after a few more minutes. I hadn’t even done track in high school, let alone cross country, and in any more normal and less life-threatening situation I would have been flopped by the side of the road clutching a stitch in my side long before now.

But I’d just followed a curve in the road, and now I could see a building in the distance. Probably a gas station or something, since it was the only major light source I could see. If I could make it into their parking lot without being noticed, all those lights would be enough to cancel out mine. And there would probably be someone who would let me use their phone.

I wondered how much of a wreck I looked. I wanted to stop and look over myself—I already knew the marks on my wrists were visible, and that was before I started bludgeoning people with a car jack. Hopefully the first person I saw didn’t immediately call the police.

The stitch in my side was gaining momentum, and the inside of my mouth tasted absolutely awful by the time I got close enough to make out the name of the gas station and count its six pumps. Only one of them was currently in use, by a woman about a decade younger than me. She was looking at her phone while pumping gas, so I was thankfully able to stroll into the bright overhead lights without anyone noticing. I didn’t want to put the gun down, but I also didn’t walk out into the open carrying it. After carefully wiping it off with my dress, I dropped it in the grass.

I did a quick calculation—was it safer to go inside and ask whoever was behind the counter for help, or did I approach the girl pumping gas and ask to use her phone? She looked perfectly harmless, but how did I know she wasn’t Rich’s girlfriend or something, on her way to help him? I was about to take my chances in the store, but she looked up from her phone as I tried to stroll nonchalantly by. She didn’t say anything, but she met my eyes, and in my attempt to dodge her gaze my eyes went to the car behind her. There was a child in the backseat.

Still breathing too hard from the running, I walked over and gave her what was probably a horrific smile.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” she asked, dropping her voice and stepping forward when she realized I was actually approaching her. “Where’d you come from?”

I gulped some more air. “I walked. I mean. Ran.” I stopped to breathe again. “Can I. Use your. Phone. Please?”

She nodded and held it out to me at once, tucking a lock of bleached hair nervously behind her ear after I’d taken it. “Are you calling the police?”

I finished punching in the digits of Stan’s number and attempted a better smile at her. “I look. That. Bad, huh?”

She looked away, like she was embarrassed for me. Great.

The phone had already rung twice. Damn it, Stan, pick up! Three times. Fo—

“Hello?”

All the strength went out of my legs, and I sat down on the curb going around the pump. Just hearing his voice was enough to get the tears rolling, because I could hear the anger and fear in it.

“It’s me,” I said, and started crying for real. I didn’t really have enough wind back in me yet to spare on sobbing, but it looked like my body was going to try anyway.

“Teagan!” He sounded like he might start crying too, actually. “Where are you, sweetie? Are you okay?”

I gulped and tried to say yes. It took a few attempts to get it out. “Can you come get me?”

“I’m on my way,” he said immediately. “Where are you?”

That answer took me a few attempts to get out, too, but I eventually got out “Park Gas N Go. Right near a big stretch of nothing.”

It must have meant something to him, anyway, because as soon as he understood what I was trying to gasp out, he said “On my way. You safe?”

“For now,” I gulped.

“Good,” he said. “Whose phone is this?”

I shrugged helplessly. “A lady? She let me borrow it.” The lady in question had finished pumping her gas and sat down in her car. She’d left the window open, though, and I could practically feel her eyes on me.

I could hear sounds of movement in the background of the call, his voice repeating my location to someone, more movement, and a minute later what I was fairly sure was a car door slamming shut. I had a hundred things I wanted to ask him, and above all else I didn’t want to have to end the call. But it wasn’t my phone, and the owner was sitting right there with her kid, waiting on me.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted to her, still crying. “Do you need it back?”

She looked horrified that I’d even asked. “Oh no, honey. It’s fine. You got someone coming for you?”

I nodded gratefully and turned my attention back to the call. “Stan? You still there?” At least my breathing was getting a little more even, so that my words could come out coherently.

“Yeah,” he said at once. “Right here. In the car. You stay on the line, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.” I sniffled some more. “Is Ford with you?”

“He was. He would’ve come too, but someone had to be the good kid. I left him to deal with the shiva crowd. I don’t think they were impressed with me leaving.” He laughed—shakily, but still a laugh. It brought on a fresh bought of grateful tears from me. “Fuck ‘em.”

I made a sound through my tears that could have been a laugh, I wasn’t quite sure.

“Teegs?” he said, concerned. Good grief, I probably sounded like I was choking or something.

“I’m okay.” I paused again, hugging myself and taking a deep breath. At least I was now to the point where deep breaths were _possible_. “Sorry for disappearing on you.”

“Hey! You don’t apologize for that.” He sounded angry, but not at me. “I saw the car leaving.” After a pause, he added. “I didn’t know what the fuck to do. We got back in the car and tried to follow, but we weren’t quick enough.” Another, longer pause. “ _I’m_ sorry, sweetheart.”

“You?” I asked in surprise. “What are _you_ sorry for?”

“I didn’t protect you,” he said softly. It felt like there was a lot unsaid packed into those words.

“I’m okay,” I told him, almost believing it this time. “Just get out here and take me home.”

“Halfway there,” he said with a touch of false confidence.

I sniffled again, closer to a laugh. “You’re running red lights, aren’t you.”

And I could almost hear the forced smile in his answer. “You bet!”

I did another sniff-laugh. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he said, so naturally that at first I didn’t even realize what he’d said. Then I did, and a genuine smile touched my lips about two seconds before the waterworks started back up.

We didn’t say a whole lot else of substance, but we stayed on the line until a black Acura pulled up in front of the gas station a few minutes later, parking next to the small convenience store. “Thank you _so_ much,” I said to the woman, ending the call and passing the phone back to her at last.

“Sure thing,” she said, offering me a kind smile. I could have hugged her, but there was someone else I really needed to hug—and he got priority.

I sprinted the short distance between the pumps and the parking space before Stan had even finished climbing out of the car. As soon as he was on his feet I launched myself into his arms, landing hard enough that his back bumped into the car as he caught me. I flung my arms around his neck, nearly knocking his glasses off in my attempts to get close to him. His arms went around my back, holding me tight, and I pressed my cheek into his shoulder. Finally, _finally_ , I felt like I might be safe.

Reluctantly, I relaxed my grip on him. “We need to get out of here,” I told him shakily, pulling back and rushing around the side of the car to climb in the passenger’s seat. “They might still come looking.”

Stan nodded once and slid back into the drivers’ seat without wasting time on questions. He reversed and peeled out with a squeak of tires in his usual horrific driving style, heading back the way he’d come. I reached out and took his right hand once we were back on the road, leaving him to steer with his left. His fingers tightened around mine, but he didn’t make any move to speak as he drove. I wanted to tell him about the past few hours, but didn’t know how to start. Maybe that was the same reason he wasn’t asking. Where _did_ you start? What do you say first?

“Where are we going?” he said at last, shooting another wary glance in my direction.

“Hotel first,” I said, and then realized I was forgetting something. “My purse! I never got my purse from the funeral home. Do you think—”

“I got it.”

“You _did_?” I didn’t realize how relieved I was to hear that until the words left my mouth. “When?”

“After we lost your trail. Went back to see if you might still be inside, or if they’d seen anything.”

“Had they?” I asked curiously.

Stan’s face took on a sour expression. “They said no. Dunno if they were lying or just stupid. But they did let us look around, and I found your purse.” Sounding even more unhappy, he added “Ford said we could track you by your phone. But you didn’t have it.”

I nodded, not quite apologizing. “They grabbed me before I could get it. I don’t think anyone _did_ see him take me. All the rest of the employees were up front.”

“Then they’re stupid,” he announced loudly.

I shrugged, not willing to argue in their defense. “Anyway, let’s just get back to the hotel and get our stuff. Think Ford will forgive us if we bail early?”

“You mean go _home_?” he asked in surprise, turning toward me in his seat.

“Stan…” I pointed to the road and lifted my eyebrows significantly.

He shook his head as if I were being ridiculous, but turned his eyes back to the road.

“Yes,” I said when I was satisfied he wasn’t going to crash his brother’s car. “We need to leave Jersey as soon as possible.” I hesitated, chewing my lip. It was very dry. “I have a feeling I’m not welcome in this state anymore, either.”

He let out a startled snort of laughter but quickly sobered. “You don’t wanna go to the cops, then?”

I cast him a sidelong glance. “We _can’t_ , can we?”

If he hoped that shrug was coming across as careless, he really was not selling it. “ _You_ can.”

“And say what? A couple of guys abducted me and tried to sell me because I glow in the dark? Also I beat the shit out of them to escape. Also my boyfriend here is legally dead.”

“Did you really?” He sounded impressed.

“Did I what?”

“Beat the shit out of them.”

“Honey, why do you think I’m _here_?”

A slow grin of pride spread over his face. “That’s my girl.”

I squeezed his hand again, and when he glanced my way I briefly returned the smile. “Always. But, like…I knocked one out with a car jack and shot the other in the leg. If I don’t go to the cops, the cops might come looking for _me_ , you know? Or maybe Rich and Mike will. I’d rather not stick around find out. Fuck, is this what your whole life has felt like?”

“Not all of it.” He ran his thumb along the side of my hand, back and forth. It was very soothing. It grounded me right here and now, something I needed that desperately. My mind was wrestling with me, trying to go back to how it had felt to smash a piece of metal into someone’s head. “Rich and Mike?”

I nodded. “Crampelter’s fucking kid, and his…friend, or something. We weren’t properly introduced.”

Stan’s jaw took on that particular angle that told me he was clenching his teeth.

“I shot him in the knee,” I offered, as if in some way that would help.

Stan shook his head, but he also started to smile again. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I.”

I half-smiled. “I guess not.” I paused, and he didn’t say anything. “That’s your cue to say ‘That’s my girl’ again. I liked that.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, but he sounded like he had something stuck in his throat. He also gripped my hand hard enough to hurt, but I didn’t mind.

I took a deep breath, preparing to tell him a condensed version of everything I’d been through…and I couldn’t. Instead. I leaned across the gap between the seats, wrapping my hand around his arm and leaning into his shoulder. That was more important right now.

We made it to the hotel quickly (thanks to Stan’s driving) and without incident (less thanks to his driving, but a victory nonetheless). He pulled around the side of the building, to the exit people only seemed to use when they needed to smoke. I nodded thanks into his shoulder, glad he’d thought of it. I really didn’t feel like walking across the dark lot right now, _or_ through the well-lit lobby. Either way, people were going to notice me. Stan passed me our room key, and assured me he’d be up as soon as he’d parked. I used it to open the door, hurry down the hallway, up an obtrusive flight of steps, and into our room.

I shut the door with profound relief, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to truly relax until I was back in Gravity Falls. At least I was _going_ back to Gravity Falls. Memories of the afternoon started infiltrating my mind again, threatening to take over and turn me into a trembling mess. I shoved them out and went to look in the mirror.

It wasn’t honestly as bad as I’d been imagining, but it certainly wasn’t good, either. My dress was ripped at the collar, and my nylons were shredded at the knees, wide stretchy holes interspersed with thin strands that had fused with the scab on my knee. I pulled them off, ripping part of the scab free in the process, and couldn’t find it in me to care. The fresh blood was sort of satisfying, actually.

My feet were freezing, but considering how far I’d run without shoes they were in pretty good shape. I pulled off my dress to get a look at my hip; the periwinkle bruise was several inches in diameter, and extremely tender. My elbows and palms were scraped, but only noticeable upon close inspection. There were a few small drops of blood that weren’t mine on the back of my right hand. The shadow of a bruise was forming on my shoulder, and it took me a minute before I could even remember where that one might have come from.

My hair was a mess, but not much worse than a night of sleeping in my braid would have done. My face was fine, if you ignored the harrowed look on it and the places my make-up had run from crying. The marks on my wrists were the only really notable injury. In the bathroom light, they were shades of pink, purple, and white. Some of it was just a rash from adhesive and too much rubbing, but in some places I had worn through the top layer of skin. It was pretty awful. I wished I had some antibiotic cream and bandages—and another glass of that scotch back at Ford’s place—but the long-sleeved blouse in my bag would at least cover them up.

I debated the merits of a hot shower. Pro: it would warm me up. Con: it would take time. Pro: it might calm me down. Con: it would take time. Pro: it would clean me up. Con: it would take time. And also it would probably sting.

There was a knock on the door, followed immediately by Stan’s voice, pitched low. “Hey, it’s me.” I hurried over in my underwear to open it for him. He stepped through quickly, pushing it shut behind him, and scooped me immediately into an embrace. He didn’t pause to check me out in my underwear, didn’t stop to look at my injuries, just kicked the door shut and pulled me close. I buried my face in his chest, letting his heat soak into me, and wishing I could stay there indefinitely. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want him to. We stood like that a long time, until it was _almost_ enough.

“You’re really okay?” he asked gruffly, stroking my hair against my head with one hand.

I nodded, trying to press closer. “No offense, but I think I hate your home state.”

A faint laugh rumbled in his chest. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’re never coming back.”

Good. I tipped my head up to look at him. “Ford will be okay, right? I feel bad abandoning him, especially since they know I was here with you guys.”

He nodded, hand moving from my hair to my cheek. “Ford can look after himself these days. Don’t forget, he’s working with the men in black. I dunno what nerdy science stuff he does for them, but I do know he’s good with a gun.”

I nodded against his hand, knowing he was right. “I still feel bad. You wanted to be here to support him.”

He was caressing my cheek in a way that both scared me and reassured me; how that was possible I’m not sure, but it did. Maybe it was the look in his eyes. I didn’t like seeing fear there. “Yeah, well.” I watched his throat move as he swallowed hard. “Ford knows I gotta take care of my family.”

I don’t know if I started crying first, or moved to kiss him. It was nearly simultaneous, and it wasn’t a sexy kiss. That didn’t stop it feeling important. It was urgent and scared on both our sides, desperately trying to reassure ourselves and each other that we were alright.

It only lasted a minute. But I did feel a little better when we released each other and stepped back. I walked purposefully to our bags and rummaged through the contents until I found that long-sleeved shirt and yesterday’s jeans. I pulled both on immediately. “Purse?” I asked Stan as I started cramming everything in sight back into the bag.

A moment later he handed me my purse. I produced my phone from its depths, studiously ignoring the missed calls from him on it. Hitting redial on the number for the local cab company made my palms sweat, but I knew there was no chance of Mike answering this particular ride request. “How long do you need to get ready?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Ready when you are, sweetheart.”

His words warmed my heart enough to extract a genuine smile, if only for a minute. I ordered a ride for twenty minutes from now, outside their old house. Then I went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face, grab my meds and toiletries, and zip the bag shut on all of it. I threw it over my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

He must have seen me wince as the strap put weight on a bruise, because he took the bag off me without comment. We both grabbed our coats and left the room.

Checking out was more complicated than it should have been, because we’d been planning on staying another night. I expedited things by not pushing for a refund, even though I could see Stan was mortified by the wasted money. He went out the front doors first, subtly slipping his brass knuckles onto his right hand. Just in case. I watched him from inside, only following when he looked back and gave me a nod. I followed him to the Acura at a run, and we drove to Ford’s in near silence. He did call his twin when we were a few minutes away, informing him of our plans. He said he’d meet us outside.

Sure enough, we’d barely parked his car in front of the old building than Ford appeared outside the door to the steps. He hurried over when we got out of the car, raising a hand in greeting. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” he hailed us, looking me over in concern. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help.”

“My girl can take care of herself,” Stan told him proudly. I noticed he was still standing protectively close to me, though.

“At least give me the time to send everyone home so I can drive you to the airport.”

I really wanted to take him up on that offer, immediately reaching into my purse to cancel the taxi request. Stan was more hesitant, though. “I dunno if you’re up to another two hours of night driving,” he said uneasily.

Ford’s eyes narrowed, as if this were a challenge. “I’ve survived much worse, Stanley.”

“And what about those people inside?”

Ford shrugged. “Honestly? I’ll be glad of an excuse to get rid of them. The whole thing is nothing more than an awkward public display of mourning. It’s more for them than it is for me. Without you there to help, frankly…I don’t know what to say to any of them.”

“You think I’d be doing any better?” Stan replied, bewildered. “Fine, whatever, use me as your excuse.”

I flashed them both a weary but sincere smile of gratitude. I wouldn’t have to deal with any more strangers until I got to the airport. I pulled my phone out and cancelled the taxi request before Ford had even gone back inside. While he was dealing with that, we retreated to the back of his car. It wasn’t nearly as spacious as the backseat of the Stanmobile, but that didn’t really matter to me tonight. I curled my legs up under me and lay down at once, resting my head in Stan’s lap.

“That’s really nice of him to drive us,” I murmured. Knowing I had an hour or more in the car with just family made me feel safe enough that the exhaustion was catching up to me quickly.

“Yeah,” Stan agreed, draping his hand over my shoulder and tugging me close against the warm bulk of his stomach. He sounded detached, though, so I wasn’t surprised when he changed the subject a moment later. “I was gonna pay them, you know.”

“Hm?” I nestled in.

He cleared his throat. “We didn’t know what happened or who took you. I thought they might want money.”

“And you were gonna pay them,” I repeated quietly, cherishing those words. Stan _loved_ money. Partly due to never having enough of it growing up, I suppose, and partly due to his asshole dad’s parting words when he kicked him out. He’d cheated and stolen and cheaped out on everything he could most of his life, and I’d accepted that about him. So he was never going to buy me fancy jewelry or a nice dinner out, so what. He was _fun_ , and he was there for me when it mattered.

That he’d considered paying an unspecified large sum of money to get me back safe wasn’t exactly a _shock_. I knew he loved money, yes, but I also knew he cared about me. The fact that he’d _admitted_ , to himself _and_ to me, that he’d have paid it was the part that tugged at my heartstrings. He was really trying to show me that he loved me.

“Thanks.” I turned my head downward and kissed him just above his knee, giving his legs a weird half-hug from my position. “I love you.”

“I, uh. I love you, too, Teagan.” Clearly, saying it on the phone when I was crying and we were both terrified was a lot easier for him. “Ugh, that feels weird. Like saying please.” He went quiet a second, and I rolled onto my back so I could stare up into his face. He was looking studiously out the window, but glanced down when he felt my gaze. “So I guess I stink at saying it. It’s still true.”

“That’s okay.” I reached a hand up toward his face, tracing along his jaw with one finger. “I know you do.”

He bobbed his head once, and went silent as I put my whole palm against his cheek. I was happy to just stare at each other for a while. It was too bad about the timing, because otherwise this might have been a perfect moment. Oh well. There would be other moments, lots of them.

After this particular moment lasted a nice long while, we heard a door open and voices in the street. I sat up enough to peek out the window and see the small group of people exiting the building, heading toward their own cars. I hurriedly lay back down and flung an arm over my face, letting Stan watch to see when they were all dispersed. He took of his jacket as did, spreading it over his lap so that no one walking by would see any of my bare skin.

A minute later the door opened and Ford got into the driver’s seat. “That was…less than pleasant.”

I peeked out from under Stan’s coat. “Sorry.”

“No need.” Ford sighed and turned the car on. “No one went so far as to verbally express their belief that I was a terrible son. I suppose I should count myself lucky.”

Stan snorted. “They got no business judging you.” As an afterthought he added, in an almost surprised voice, “Or me.”

“Agreed,” Ford said, sounding tired. “But that won’t stop them.”

“Nope,” Stan agreed almost cheerfully. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Ford took us through the city streets without speaking, leaving the news radio to fill the silence. He didn’t insist on me sitting up and buckling my seatbelt, so I pushed Stan’s coat back enough to breathe fresh air and stayed put. Exhaustion caught up to me before we’d even made it to the highway.

I woke for no discernable reason when we were still about ten minutes out from the airport. Maybe my conscience was reminding me that I owed Ford a little bit of explanation before we left him alone in Jersey to deal with the potential fallout. So after a few stretches and a lot of yawns, I sat up and made myself start talking. The first few sentences were hard. I had to remember everything in detail, when my mind still longed to just shove it away. I had to admit how bad my initial instincts had been. And I had to watch and feel Stan’s reactions as I told the story.

But it got easier as I got further into it. They both acted impressed at me getting out of the duct tape, which made it possible for me to get past my sweaty palms and nausea and talk about hitting someone with a car jack. The fact that they both seemed impressed by that, too, made me feel both angry and proud. Angry because they hadn’t been there and couldn’t understand how awful it had actually been. And proud because I knew they’d been through enough bad shit of their own that their reactions were actually very high praise. Stan actually whistled when I described shooting Mike in the leg.

“What do you think they’ll do now?” I asked tremulously when I wrapped up the narrative. We were off the freeway now, just a few minutes from the airport.

“Nothing,” Stan scoffed confidently. “Even if they somehow got the cops in their pocket, the story doesn’t add up unless they admit to kidnapping you. And they’re not gonna want to admit they got their asses handed to them by a girl your size.”

“You really think so?” I fretted, rubbing my sweaty hands on my jeans. “They’ll need to say _something_ when they go to the hospital though, won’t they?”

“Actually, Teagan, I think he’s right,” Ford volunteered from the front seat. “Volunteering any details about what happened is more likely to get _them_ into hot water with the authorities than you.”

“Wouldn’t they want to…take revenge, or something?” I was finding this reassuring, and I _wanted_ to be reassured, but I didn’t quite trust it yet, either.

“Oh, are you worried they’re going to come after _me_?” Ford asked in a flash of insight. His hand went to his hip, right where you’d conceal a handgun under a suit and long coat. He didn’t laugh, but my view between the seats allowed me to see a grim smile. “I’d like to see them try.”

“Sorry about leaving you to go through the rest of the boxes and stuff on your own, though,” Stan said. That was the most important thing to them—that our early departure put Ford in danger of throwing out his back lifting too many boxes. Now _that_ was reassuring.

“It’s only a day.” Ford waved his hand dismissively.

Stan stubbornly crossed his arms. “I’ll come back after I get Teegs home safe. You’re giving me half the money, I oughta do half the work.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Ford shut him down firmly. “I can handle it. You were here for the important part.”

They sounded like they were gearing up for a brotherly argument. I sighed and leaned my head into Stan’s shoulder. Whatever he’d been going to say, he held back, slipping his arm around me instead. “Almost there, sweetie.”

We were. I could see the concourse outside the window. Ugh. The idea of having to endure another six hours of travel in the middle of the night was almost too much to bare. I just wanted to be _home_ already. Home. I thought about slipping between the sheets of my own bed, falling asleep to the sound of Stan flipping through the pages of a mystery novel. Or Nicky and Horace’s whispers floating down through the ceiling above us. Or the faint strains of whatever music Dave was listening to as he texted friends late into the night. Maybe Stan’s snores, instead. A mixture of all of them, and the slight homey, musty smell of the old place that never quite went away no matter how much air freshener I sprayed.

I’d only been gone a day and a half, but I suddenly missed it so much I could cry. I just wanted to get home and hug my kids, eat junk food out of my own pantry, take a scalding hot shower in my own bathroom. Ford dropped us right outside the main doors, only getting out of the car long enough to exchange a few quick hugs. “Stay safe,” he told me after muttering something I didn’t quite catch to Stan.

I nodded, smiling wryly. “I keep trying. You’ll come for Christmas?”

“Oh, am I invited?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Of _course_ you’re invited! I didn’t think it even needed to be said. We have a spare bedroom, come for as long as you can. We want you there—you’re family.”

He met my eyes, understanding passing between us. Maybe he’d said it first, maybe Stan had. Well, now I had, too. Stan and I, we’d crossed over from summer fling into real partnership in the past few months; neither of us were going anywhere. And that made us family. Which made Ford my family now, too, in every way that counted. (It also meant Dave was going to have to adjust to Stan taking an interest in his life, because it made _them_ family, too.)

“I’ll be there,” Ford promised.

“Bring some more of that nice scotch,” said Stan. “And that hundred K you owe me.”

“Owe?” Ford arched an eyebrow, and Stan had the grace to blush…just a little bit.

We said one more round of goodbyes and then made a dash from the car to the welcome artificial light of the building, where Stan proceeded to alternately threaten and charm people until they let us trade in tomorrow afternoon’s flight for one leaving in an hour. There was one change-over, and we’d be back around four in the morning, pacific time. We’d be able to go to bed, sleep late, and still pick up the boys earlier than they’d been expecting.

My wrists and hip still hurt. I asked the stewardess for a glass of rum and downed it, dulling the pain enough to watch the in-flight movie with Stan. It was really bad. He laughed loudly through most of it, oblivious to the other passengers who had been trying to sleep and were now giving him dirty looks. It was enough to make _me_ start giggling, too. I snuggled up against him as much as the seats would allow.

The flight still seemed to last forever. They dimmed the cabin lights, so I turned on all the seat lights I could reach and pretended to be reading on my phone. With any luck, anyone looking my way would think the light from its screen was the reason my face and hands seemed to have some extra illumination. No one really seemed to be watching me, but it was hard not to be paranoid.

Stan fell asleep sometime after the movie ended, and I fondly watched him doze. With him asleep, though, I couldn’t seem to turn myself back off. My wrists just seemed to be hurting _worse_ as time passed, and I worried whether I’d ever feel truly safe again. Were we just supposed to go back to daily life and pretend nothing had happened? Maybe tomorrow I’d wake up and the whole thing would just seem like a bad dream, but I was scared that it wouldn’t. The next time the stewardess came by, I ordered another drink—a double. Could I just develop a nice little drinking habit to forget about all this?

No. Stan had lived through worse. Ford had lived through worse. Hell, most of the people in Gravity Falls had lived through worse. There must be a way to get through it. And I wasn’t weak—I’d find a way, too.

I’d find it.


	3. Us.

The cure to getting over my abduction attempt, it seemed, was coating myself in the balm of daily life. The day we made it home I was still a nervous, twitchy mess—crying onto Dave, Nicky, and even Horace when he manifested, and having difficulty sleeping.

The next day I was detached and irritable, but it was Monday and I had to go back to work. That was as tedious as ever, and the multiple texts I got from Stan and the boys through the course of the day making sure I was alright got on my nerves more than anything. But I realized halfway through the afternoon that I no longer expected anyone to jump out of the shadows and point a gun at me. Everyone knew me here, and I felt safe. Being able to go home and cook while the boys did their homework was almost soothing.

Tuesday, I got a call from the middle school that actually necessitated me going in and talking with the principal; Nicky had punched a sixth-grader in between classes. I sat in the office as Nicky stared defiantly straight ahead, determined not to repent or meet my eyes, and debated silently whether this was more than my nerves could take. The sixth-grader was Gideon, of course. I explained to the principal that the kid had been bothering my son for weeks, but of course since we had never made an official complaint about it there wasn’t much she could do. I had to take Nick back home after the meeting, since he was suspended until after Thanksgiving break. Given Thanksgiving was that week, I felt that was reasonable.

We had a long talk on the drive home about finding different, better ways to stand up to bullies. I pointed out that with manipulative little shits like Gideon, attacking him was only going to backfire. Nicky glared out the window and informed me that Stan had told him physical attacks were the _only_ thing that worked on Gideon. And that he’d been teaching him to punch. And I didn’t understand anything.

This was definitely more than my nerves could take.

That night we had a family discussion that put _everyone_ in a bad mood. Stan was convinced he was right, and Nicky was determined to believe him because then it made _him_ right. Dave took my side in the argument that followed, but it only served to get him snapped at because I knew he was doing it to be a dick to Nick and Stan. The fact that deep down I was aware that Stan and Nicky _knew_ Gideon, and had a much better idea of how he worked than I did, did not improve my temper. _Someone_ had to argue the side of non-violence; I couldn’t afford to skip out of work to meet with the principal again. Horace couldn’t handle all of us arguing, and fled to Nicky’s room in opalescent tears. I spent the next hour consoling a ghost.

It was only after everything had died down and I’d returned to the main floor to load the dishwasher that I realized I’d hardly thought about Mike and Rich all day.

Wednesday, Nicky had to go help out Stan and Soos at the Shack instead of staying home playing games. I’d intended it as punishment, knowing Stan would make him work hard, but he came home crowing about how much fun he’d had learning things from Soos. Well…at least he’d learned something? After dropping Dave off at Robbie’s for band practice, I stopped by the store to pick up the last few supplies I needed for Thanksgiving. It was dark out when I pushed my cart out to the car, but I managed to smile and wave back at the people who greeted me.

Thursday, I spent most of the day cleaning and preparing food. Soos was going to be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner, along with his abuelita and girlfriend. During the course of the morning we also had three video calls that interrupted our activity. The first was from my parents, who missed having us in town for the holiday but seemed to be enjoying themselves. They knew I was seeing somebody, and they knew he was older, but it still felt awkward introducing them to Stan via video chat. The fact that all of _them_ found it just as awkward as I did was not helpful. I told my parents I loved them and plead business in the kitchen, passing the phone off to the kids as quickly as I could.

About an hour later, Ford called. He was still in Jersey, wrapping things up, but absolutely no one had attempted to harm and he assured me that there had been nothing of interest in the local news either. He said he had several boxes of things for Stan, and asked if he wanted them shipped or if he should just bring them at Christmas. A few minutes into that talk, the timer for my pie went off, and I left the twins talking. It occurred to me as I took a pecan pie out of the oven that I didn’t resent Ford nearly as much as I used to.

The last call was from Mabel and Dipper, and lifted all our spirits substantially. Mabel was decked out in a pilgrim outfit and displaying her Christmas-colored braces with a broad grin; Dipper still had on the trapper hat he’d worn all last summer and was unfortunately battling an outbreak of skin problems. They were both ready to talk our ears off about every little detail of their lives, and equally eager to hear about everything happening in Gravity Falls. You’d almost had thought, from the number of questions they asked, that they never texted my sons or their other friends here—which I knew was definitely _not_ the case.

I saw their parents, Oscar and Melinda, for the first time ever. They seemed nice and were happy to actually speak with me for ten seconds after hearing so much about me. They also seemed very frazzled, probably from living in California and attempting to parent twin teenagers with overflowing energy. Mabel kept trying to put a matching holiday outfit on Waddles, who kept flopping over to get his stomach rubbed. Nicky and Horace ran off with the phone to give the twins a virtual tour of the house—where they would _officially_ now be staying when they visited next summer. Good thing I’d gotten a house with an extra bedroom. Dipper asked if Wendy was seeing anyone, and offered plentiful commiserations on Gideon. Stan told a long-winded story about a particularly entertaining day at the Mystery Shack. Dave gave tips on skin care and complained about how hard his classes were. I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

But eventually I had to drag myself away and get back to the kitchen. Thanks partly to Mabel’s influence over the summer, Dave had volunteered to help me cook so that he’d know how for the future. This meant terrible, terrible modern music playing in my kitchen, but I did enjoy the company and the help. Stan was out in the living room, attempting to play video games with Horace and Nicky. Hearing his indignant shouts every time he lost made me smile.

Soos, Melody, and…oh help, I’d only ever heard her referred to as “Abuelita”…arrived while we were still chopping potatoes, but I released Dave to go out and play host while I finished up. By the time I came out to offer everyone drinks, the entire crew was taking turns with our three game controllers and excitedly cheering each other on.

Well, “cheering on” was a broad term. For Soos, it meant exclamations like “Nice one, dude, haha, you really got me!” For Horace it meant more “Oh come on, even _I_ can beat _that_ move!” For Stan, it translated as “Yeah! Kick his butt, Nicky! Fight, fight!”

It was the best playlist I could ask for. I loved all of them so much, damn it.

Dinner was filling and noisy. Abuelita (whose real name was Carmela but who insisted everyone call her Abuelita anyway) insisted we say a prayer before eating and saw no reason at all why a table full of atheists, agnostics, angsty teens, and ghosts should find that strange. I ignored the religious part and focused on being thankful for what I had. Less than a week ago I’d thought I was going to lose all of it, and yet here we were. My sweet little ghost. My geeky, angry twelve-year-old. My talented, melodramatic teen. My tactless, protective, conman boyfriend (who loved me). And our friends. Our home. Our weirdness.

Yeah, it was a pretty good day to be thankful.

Lying in bed by Stan that night, I was feeling enough like myself to turn my thoughts outward. “How are you doing?” I asked seriously, rotating to my side gingerly because I was still feeling the effects of too much dinner. “I know I’ve been off all week, and you’ve had to pick up the slack. I’ve been completely ignoring the fact that we were at your dad’s _funeral_ last week. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s been…it’s been a rough week, hasn’t it,” he observed, staring into the space over my shoulder as he got lost in thought. I touched his cheek, bringing him back. “Nah,” he said with a tiny shake of the head. “Dad…that was an old wound. I didn’t like having to deal with it, but…” He shrugged. “It’s kinda easier now, if you can believe that.”

“Sure I can.” I smiled softly. “Now the wound can start closing.”

He shared my little smile. “I got a pretty good brother.”

“I’m just glad he appreciates you.” I kissed him gently, barely skimming my lips against his. We’d only made love once since we got back, and that had been just a few hours after we got off the plane. It had been great—reassuring and powerful and sweet—but since then I’d been closing myself off. I couldn’t even properly identify _why_ I was doing it. But Stan hadn’t pushed, not once.

He rested a hand on my shoulder, looking at me. “I guess the better question is how’re _you_ doing?”

“I’m fine,” I said automatically, and then winced at how obviously false that was. “I’m getting better. I don’t quite know how to explain it. Sometimes I’m mad at myself for being that helpless, and other times I’m disgusted that I could do something so… _vicious_. Sometimes I’m pissed off that I ran instead of going to the cops. What if they hurt someone else? That’ll be on me.”

Stan sighed heavily. “You know you don’t have to look out for the whole world, right?” I didn’t answer. “Look, you did what you had to, to survive. There’s no shame in that.”

I wiggled closer, tipping my forehead into his chest and hiding my face. “I don’t think I can ever leave town again.”

He was quiet for a minute, smoothing my hair back absently. “Yeah, I get that,” he said in almost a whisper. “But so what?”

“So what?” I kept my face down. “So I’m never supposed to go on vacation with my kids again? Or you? How do I explain to my parents that from now on if they want to see me, they have to come to Oregon? I wanted to go to Vegas with you someday. To take the boys to Europe. What happens after they’re grown up, Stan?” Just articulating the thought spread fingers of anxiety through me. “What if they move away? That’s what kids do after high school, they move away. I’ll just have to sit around here, waiting for them to come back and visit? Because I’m scared some other monster will notice me at night and think I’d get a good price?” I hugged him harder. “I thought when Ford made up the pills, everything was going to be fine!”

“Teagan.” He tipped my chin up, forcing me to look at him. I bit my lip, but didn’t fight it. “First, if you really wanna go to Vegas, I promise no one’s gonna notice you. That place is never dark.” He smiled hopefully, and I weakly returned it. “Next, who cares if you can’t leave? I don’t. I never figured when I was a kid that I’d wind up settling down in a crappy little town full of dumb people, but it’s not so bad. Not like I was planning on going anywhere else anyhow.”

“When we met, you told me you and Ford were planning on spending the winter boating in the Caribbean,” I reminded him.

Stan scratched the back of his neck, caught. “Yeah, well. Plans change. And you change with them.” We went silent a moment, and I was starting to enjoy the quiet closeness until he asked “So you wish you never came here?”

“What?” I twitched backward, caught off-guard by the question.

He shrugged, and it had a defensive air to it. “You were supposed to be here for three weeks—see, I can remember things too! Now you’re saying you’re stuck here forever. You had to leave your home and your job. You try to help me out, and it gets you abducted. And what’d you get in return? You’d have been better off staying home.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said, draping my arms over his shoulders. “I got _you_ in return. And Horace, and Dipper and Mabel, and Ford, and so much more. No, I don’t wish we’d never come. I like this life better than my old one.” I inched my face closer; he took the invitation and kissed me. It was deeper than the one a few minutes ago—scratchy, intense, passionate. I kept my forehead against his when we stopped. “I wouldn’t trade you for anything,” I whispered, pressing my hand against his chest. “Thanks for reminding me of that.”

“Anytime?” He sounded perplexed by my reaction, but pleased.

“I guess my kids are going to grow up and move out eventually no matter _where_ I live,” I murmured almost to myself. “At least here, I have someone around to hang out with when they’re gone.”

“Yeah, Horace is never gonna get any older. You stuck yourself with a permanent ten-year-old, sweetie.”

I laughed lightly. “I meant _you_.”

“Yeah but admit it, you like the idea of taking care of a kid forever.”

Shaking my head in denial, I smiled. “Horace doesn’t eat everything in the pantry, demand rides to places, get in trouble at school, or make giant piles of sweaty laundry that smell like death. Compared to my flesh and blood kids, he’s a walk in the park.”

“Jeez, when you put it like that _I’m_ more work than the ghost!”

“You are,” I agreed, rubbing my cheek against the stubble on his neck. “But I wouldn’t want to be in love with a ghost.”

“Watch out, sweetie—I’m gonna die before you, you know. You saying you _don’t_ want me to come back and haunt you?”

“Oooh, that’s a tough one.” I chewed my lip. “Because on the one hand, that sounds _incredibly_ sexually frustrating. If you couldn’t figure out how to fully manifest, I might lose my mind.”

“And on the other hand?” Speaking of other hands, he’d moved his to rest on my hips. I didn’t flinch away.

“On the other hand,” I informed him, “I don’t ever want to be without you.”

“Hm.” Stan smiled at me, and I found myself thankful for the bioluminescent glow that let me see the way his eyes shone and crinkled up at the corners right before he pulled me in close. “Good answer.”

*

“That one’s from bluffing that you could play five-finger filet…that one’s from punching a window…that one’s from a hot boat engine…” I walked my fingers slowly up his arm, scanning through the veins and hair for familiar little marks. “That one’s from, ah…making an exhibit, right? You were cutting the head off a stuffed bobcat! This impressive one’s from insulting a bouncer…” I’d made it up to the front of his shoulder, and shoved the sleeve of his shirt to the side. “This one’s from the walrus last year… _this_ one’s a burn from the machine in Ford’s lab…” I brushed his hair away from his ear, hunting for the one I knew lurked back there.

“Is this normal?” I’d thought we were alone in the living room, but a quick glance away from Stan showed me that Horace had drifted in.

“I thought you were playing crazy golf in the twins’ room,” I remarked without accusation.

His translucent shoulders lifted and fell. “I can’t play. I’d have to manifest too hard for too long.” He floated down until he was sitting at the other end of the sofa, staring dejectedly at his bare feet. “Anyway, it’s too _loud_ up there. How long are they here for, again?”

“Hey, they’re _family_ ,” Stan reminded him, taking his hand off my waist to glare. “They can stay as long as they want.”

I put his hand back where it had been. He could get defensive _while_ holding me sideways in his lap. “A week,” I told Horace with a trace of apology. “They’ll be back in California by next weekend.”

“But they’ll be back this summer,” Stan reminded him. “For the _whole_ summer. They were here first, kid.”

“Actually _I_ was here first,” Horace objected, folding his arms over his chest angrily. “I lived here for ninety years before you came along!”

“What happened to him being the sweet one?” Stan asked, turning his face toward me.

“He’s been hanging out with teenagers for six months,” I answered with a shrug. “Plus he manifested _all_ day yesterday. He’s probably tired and cranky.”

“I am _not_ tired and cranky!” Horace snapped, sounding just like an overtired little boy.

I sighed. “Why don’t you go knock some icicles off the roof for us?”

He grumbled something I didn’t quite catch, but I was pretty sure wasn’t flattering.

“Go on,” Stan said, waving a hand in his direction. “Go make yourself useful, you heard her!”

He sat on the end of the sofa with his arms crossed and glared at us.

Stan glared back, but I decided the best approach was just ignoring Horace. I went back to searching for the scar behind Stan’s ear, brushing it with a distracting kiss when I found it. “That one’s from Colombia. Which of your cellmates tried to cut it off?”

“Ah, he was just joking,” he answered, evading the question. “At least, I think he was. Never did learn to speak Spanish so good.” He looked momentarily worried.

“Was just wondering if it was the same guy responsible for the one on your back,” I remarked lightly, shifting so that I could get a better look at his other shoulder. Horace sighed loudly, and I felt Stan tense. I persisted anyway. I’d been enjoying this while it was just the two of us—and moments with just the two of us had been very hard to come by outside of the bedroom ever since school let out for Christmas break. “That one’s from…the pterodactyl? And—”

Another loud sigh. “I don’t remember grown-ups doing stuff like this in public.”

“We aren’t in public,” Stan shot back. “You don’t like watching, then get lost.”

Horace sulked. “It’s creepy. If that’s what dating is really like, I’m glad _I’m_ never going to grow up!”

“No one asked you,” Stan pointed out sharply.

I put a quelling hand on his arm, and directed my response to Horace. “That’s enough there, Peter Pan. I’m sorry Nicky’s preoccupied right now. He sees you every day, but he hasn’t seen Dipper and Mabel since the start of school.”

“Even Dave’s playing,” he whined, looking abruptly more hurt than angry.

With a sigh, I slid off Stan’s lap and pulled Horace into a hug. A shock of cold went through me as my arms wrapped around nothing more than mist. He really _was_ tired. “It’s not a conspiracy, love,” I told him, sitting back and trying not to shiver. “It’s just an adjustment. Please, go have a rest so we can all have fun after dinner.”

“Is Soos coming over?” he asked, hope flashing in his eyes. We’d seen Soos and Melody several times since Thanksgiving, and Horace really liked them.

“Yes,” I said with a smile.

“Okay,” he said, and disappeared without another word.

I flopped back against Stan’s chest and groaned. “Please can break be over already?”

“You don’t mean that,” Stan protested, sounding a little upset. Of course—Ford had only been in town a few days, and Dipper and Mabel’s bus had arrived just this morning. He shared me and the house with Dave and Nicky every day, but I started complaining the minute _his_ family showed up?

“You’re right, I don’t.” I sat up, looking at him properly. “I love that everyone’s here. I’m so psyched the twins could make it. They and Ford are welcome here any time, I meant that when I said it. It’s just…three teenagers and two pre-teens packed into one house for a week?” I made a sound of exhaustion. “And blended family…it’s hard. And complicated. You know?”

He had relaxed as soon as I reiterated my pleasure at having the extra Pines around, and now he gave me a faint smile. “Sure. I mean you got you and your kids. And then you got me and my niece and nephew. And then you throw in somebody else’s kid from last century, and my nerdy twin brother to boot. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah, but you got something wrong,” I said. He lifted his eyebrows in a silent question, and I let a slow smile take over my face. “They’re all _ours_.”

He grinned at that, and slid one hand back around my waist. Then he chuckled to himself.

I nudged him, still smiling. “What?”

“They oughtta make a tv show about us.”

“Yes, because adding camera crews to this mess would totally help.”

“Bet we could sell it though.”

I rolled my eyes. “At what cost? Also, unless you’re talking about Gravity Falls public access tv, you’d be breaking just about every secrecy law the town has.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” He waved a hand as if my solid objections were an annoying bug flying around him.

“You’re right, though,” I admitted after a minute. “It _would_ make a pretty good show.”

“Teakettle!” Mabel’s voice made it down the stairs a full five seconds before she did. “Dave said you got _kidnapped_? And you didn’t _tell_ us? I thought we were _friends_!”

Dave appeared at the bottom of the steps as she was speaking. He looked uncomfortable. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t know you hadn’t told her!”

“Why would she, when she knows you clowns text back and forth about everything that happens?” Stan came to my defense.

“Because,” Mabel said, eyes shining with intensity, “ _You_ talked to us right after it happened! Why didn’t you say anything? That’s so scary. How did you escape? I need to know _everything_.”

If I’d tried to tell them about it at Thanksgiving, I would have wound up completely melting down. But I didn’t need to disillusion the kids quite thoroughly enough to say that just now. “It was Thanksgiving,” I said reasonably, feeling very glad that I’d had that extra month to gain some sense of calm and distance. “I was busy getting everything ready, and we were excited to talk to you. I didn’t want to wreck everyone’s mood. Kidnapping’s kind of a downer.” I threw her a wink on that last statement, which seemed to delight her. Thank goodness Mabel hadn’t outgrown her bubbly enthusiasm yet.

“Well you can tell me now, right?” she asked, sitting down at the end of the sofa in the same spot Horace had just vacated.

Stan’s hand closed around mine. I flicked my eyes sideways and gave him a smile and nod, letting him know it was alright; thinking about it didn’t overwhelm me anymore. “Okay, but if Dipper wants to hear it too, he better get down here. I’m not telling it twice.”

“Dipper!” She jumped back to her feet and tore up the stairs. “C’mere!”

“Sorry,” Dave said again, taking the seat Mabel had left. “You know how she is.”

“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “How was the golf going?”

He rolled his eyes. “Mabel’s winning. You should see the course we built, though!”

“I’m actually invited up to come see?” I gasped, exaggerating my flattery.

He rolled his eyes even harder. “It’s in the _twins’_ room, not mine.”

“Oh, so you can invite me into _other_ people’s rooms, but not your own. Got it.”

This time he sighed. “Stan, can you make her be _any_ less embarrassing?”

“Yeah, Teegs, jeez,” Stan played along. “Don’t you know how lame talking to your mom is? Quit making him do that.” He dropped his voice slightly. “But seriously, quit making him roll his eyes like that. Makes me wanna…I dunno, go through all his text messages when he’s asleep.”

Dave’s teeth ground together. “You wouldn’t _dare_.”

Stan matched his glare. “Try me.”

“If you do, I’ll…I’ll…post naked pictures of you to the town website!”

“Eh.” Stan seemed completely unimpressed by this threat. “Knock yourself out, I got nothing to hide.”

“Ugh!” Dave exclaimed in disgust that I thought bordered on amusement. “You’re worse than _she_ is!”

Stan shot him with a finger-gun. “Now you’re getting it.”

Dave actually grinned at him. It was there and gone so fast I almost missed it, but it definitely happened. A day-after-Christmas miracle.

The rest of the breathing children descended. I shifted from the sofa to the floor to accommodate—we had _two_ sofas, but the other one was currently piled with blankets and pillows for Ford. (Sometimes I suspected Stan wasn’t the only twin who hated spending money.) I stretched out on my back by Stan’s feet, and Mabel sprawled on her stomach next to me while the boys crowded onto the available sofa cushions.

I narrated a slightly sanitized version of our trip to New Jersey, trying to make it sound more exciting and less traumatizing than it actually had been. “And that’s why,” I concluded, “since we got back, I’ve been making your uncle teach me how to fight dirty.”

Stan glowed with pride. “You’re not half bad at it.” He paused and shot a look at Nicky.

Nicky puffed up his skinny little chest and beamed. “He’s teaching _me_ , too!”

“I thought he just taught you how to _hit_!” Mabel protested.

“Yeah, hit _Gideon_ ,” Dipper laughed. “That’s not too hard.”

Mabel laughed with him. “Remember when you hit him with the broom, Grunkle Stan?” Stan smiled dreamily at the memory as Mabel went on “Maybe you should start bringing a broom to school, Nicky!”

This was clearly not the reaction Nicky had been looking for, but he managed a smile anyway. “Think he’d run away if I did?”

Dave shook his head. “A broom at school? You’d just get some loser pointing at you and saying you’re a witch.” He considered. “Or the janitor. Whichever’s worse.”

Nicky’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right.”

“I still say you should go over there and talk to him,” Dipper told his sister. “Just lay it out that it’s your _cousin_ he’s been messing with, and…”

“I already tried that,” Nicky admitted, looking even more discouraged. “After you guys told me about all the stuff he did last year.”

“He didn’t care that he was ruining his shot with Mabel?” Dipper asked in surprise.

“He doesn’t _have_ a shot with me!” she immediately objected.

“Yeah but _he_ doesn’t have to know that,” Dave suggested slyly.

Nicky shook his head. “He doesn’t care anymore. He likes some other girl.”

“Who?” Dipper asked, face contorting in confusion.

“Oooh, who?” Mabel said at the same time, sounding excited by potential romance or gossip.

“Yeah, who’s better than Mabel?” Stan demanded, looking offended on her behalf.

“No one,” Dave agreed at once.

“You _guys_ ,” Mabel protested. “I don’t _want_ Gideon to like me!”

“Good, because he doesn’t,” Nicky said levelly. “You know what he said when I tried dropping your name?” We all watched him expectantly. He adopted a terrible impression of a southern drawl when he spoke again. “Mabel? Oh goodness no, I moved on from _that_ little crush ages ago!”

“ _Little_ crush?” Mabel repeated angrily. “He tried to kidnap me! And kill Dipper! He asked me to _marry_ him!”

Nicky shrugged. “Well, now he likes Amy.”

“Who’s Amy?” I asked, feeling left out of the conversation.

He shrugged again. “This girl in my gaming group.”

“You have a _girl_ in your group?” Dipper said, deeply impressed.

Another shrug. “Yeah. She’s cool.”

“Since when is Gideon into nerds?” Stan asked, then answered the question himself. “He must’ve finally realized you’re out of his league.”

I shot him an amused look, which he definitely saw but chose to ignore. “Is she pretty?”

Nicky turned an expression on me that clearly showed his horror that I would ask such a thing. “I guess,” he allowed after a long pause.

“And she hangs out with you?” I pressed.

“Sometimes? So what!”

One more question. “And how do you know Gideon likes her?”

This time he groaned. “The whole school knows. He asks her out practically every week!”

“Ohmygosh, that poor girl!” Mabel exclaimed, clapping a hand dramatically to her chest. “You _have_ to introduce me, Nicky! Maybe I can help her.”

I looked over at Stan. “Did you know about this part?”

He shook his head slowly. “What, you think he tells me everything? He just lets me show him boxing moves.”

I nodded in satisfaction. So Nicky had failed this critical information to mention this to _everyone_. Typical. “Nick…don’t you think he might be picking on you because he’s _jealous_?”

Nicky looked deeply skeptical about this. “Jealous? It’s not like I’m her boyfriend or anything!”

Dipper closed his eyes, shook his head, and put a hand on Nicky’s shoulder. “Come on, man. I’ll explain it to you.”

Still looking perplexed, Nicky followed him into the kitchen. Where they were probably going to eat half the cookies I’d baked yesterday. At least I knew it wouldn’t spoil Nicky’s appetite. _Nothing_ spoiled his appetite lately.

That left us with just Dave and Mabel. I watched them exchange looks, processing that the other two were gone. “I love that sweater,” Dave told her. She was wearing a white holiday sweater with a rainbow Christmas tree.

“Thanks!” Mabel beamed. “You want me to make you one, too?”

“Oh, I, um…don’t think I could pull it off,” he responded with a faint blush.

“Don’t be silly, you totally could! I could even show you how to stitch in some sparkly ornaments!” Dave cast a desperate look at me and Stan, but we had nothing to offer him but helpless shrugs. There was no way to stop her, now that he’d brought it up. “I love what you’re doing with your hair now,” she went on, not bothered by his lack of enthusiasm. “Pulling it back shows off your cheekbones.”

“Oooh, wanna do makeovers?” Dave asked, probably hoping to distract her from taking his measurements for a sweater.

“Oh my gosh, _yes_ ,” she shrieked, and they were back upstairs before I’d even returned to my seat on the sofa.

“They’re just doing make-overs on each _other_ , right?” Stan said uneasily, eyes on the now-empty steps.

I looked at him sideways, trying not to smirk. “Did they get you once, that I’m not aware of?” He scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment, making me laugh delightedly. “Oh, my poor Stan. But I have to know—how did you look?”

“Fantastic. Obviously.” He winked at me.

“Well, naturally,” I allowed, grinning. “But _how_ fantastic? Inquiring minds need to know.”

“Inquiring minds need to mind their own damn business,” he retorted.

I scooted back into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “You _are_ my business, though.” I kissed him lightly. “And an excellent investment, if I do say so.”

“You don’t know the first thing about investments, sweetie.”

“So?” I let one of my hands trail down to his chest. He had on a real shirt—we were having enough people over that I’d insisted—but there was no hiding the gold chain and silver chest hair peeking out of the collar. “I know about plenty of other things.”

He nodded in agreement. “So you okay? After all that?”

I knew he meant Mabel’s unwanted questions. “Actually, yes,” I told him, almost surprised by it myself. “It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.” I ran my fingers along the line of the chain. “Of course, it helped that they almost immediately changed the subject to Gideon. I _told_ you that all had something to do with a girl, didn’t I!”

“Yeah, sure,” he said in a way that I was sure meant he was just humoring me.

“He used to tell me everything, you know.” I sighed and looked at the clock. “Half an hour or so, and I need to start peeling potatoes.”

“It’ll go faster if you force all the kids to help.”

“No it wouldn’t,” I snorted. “Any time that might get saved by having extra hands would get negated by them fighting over who got the good knife and asking me what to do with the peels and whining about having to be useful.”

Stan nodded, accepting this truth. “Well, at least we still got half an hour to ourselves. Hey, lemme—”

The front door opened, letting in a blast of damp air along with Ford. He shook his head as he pushed the door closed behind him, sending loose snowflakes flying from his hair. There was snow dusting the front and shoulders of his coat, too. It hadn’t been snowing when we picked up Dipper and Mabel earlier; I went to look out the window and see how bad it was.

“Where were you?” Stan asked his brother as Ford politely removed his shoes. Good, it didn’t look like the snow was sticking to the street yet. Hopefully that meant Soos and Melody wouldn’t have any trouble getting here. Once they made it, we could crank up the heat and turn on the tv and worry about nothing but eating, drinking, and relaxing regardless of how much snow wanted to pile up.

“There was one more gift I needed to pick up,” Ford answered, walking over to the sofa and claiming the spot that had so recently been occupied by nearly every young adult in the house.

“You didn’t get your shopping done before now?” Stan looked rather pleased by this apparently failure. We’d done most of our present exchanges yesterday, at Nicky’s insistence, but we’d put off some of it until the whole family was here. “Cutting it kinda close, aren’t you, sixer?”

Ford raised one eyebrow. “I finished shopping for you and the children weeks ago,” he said, sounding annoying superior. “And this is one I couldn’t purchase online.” He had a small shoebox sitting in his lap, but now he picked it up and passed it to me. “Think of this less as a Christmas gift and more as a, ah…a thank-you.”

I scrunched up my face, baffled, as he pressed the box into my hands. “What do you have to thank me for?”

He shrugged, looking vaguely awkward. “A great deal, from my point of view.”

Stan crossed his arms and shook his head. “You trying to steal my girlfriend now? It won’t work, genius.” I elbowed him, and noticed his tiny smirk. As long as he knew he didn’t need to worry about me, he could give Ford as much crap as he liked.

“You really shouldn’t have,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed myself at getting any sort of extra gift. I opened the box anyhow, though.

Lying in a bed of tissue paper was a large jar of unlabeled ointment and what looked like a plastic toy gun. I wrinkled my brow and looked back up at Ford, waiting for an explanation.

“Yes, well,” he said, drumming his fingers anxiously on his knees. “I needed Fiddleford’s help in perfecting the memory gun. It was originally his invention, so I thought it only fitting.”

“Memory gun?” I picked it up gingerly, glancing at Stan with my mouth slightly ajar. I’d heard about these things, when the Pines had been filling us in on the stories from their previous summer. It didn’t seem like something anyone would be giving as a gift.

“A pocket version,” Ford said with an eager smile. “Easy to conceal in your purse, and pre-programmed to erase only one type of memory.”

I gasped, looking back to him for affirmation. “ _Really_?”

Looking very pleased with himself, he nodded. “If anyone you don’t trust _should_ see you after dark, one shot from this should ensure they forget it completely without erasing their memory of you as a person.”

I put my hand properly on the little gun, aiming it out the window and resting my finger lightly against the trigger. It made me nervous, but it also felt a tiny bit like freedom. I set it carefully back in the box, and flung my arms around his neck. “ _Thank_ you! Do you have any idea how much this means? What’s the lotion?”

“Ah.” He smiled again, adjusting his glasses as I released him from the embrace. “I’m afraid I haven’t been able to test it yet. But in theory, that cream should act as a concealer to mask your luminescence. If you apply it to all visible skin before going out, you should look perfectly unremarkable for at least three hours.”

My jaw dropped.

Ford must have sensed that I was getting ready to hug him again, because he got to his feet and strolled toward the window. “I’d suggest you try it out at home before relying on it. I’m afraid I had no one to test it on during development.”

Since he didn’t seem to want any more gratitude, I turned my excitement on Stan, instead. “Did you know?” I demanded, hugging him hard.

“I, uh…yeah, I might’ve suggested it… Didn’t know he was gonna give it to you _now_ , though. Way to show me up at Christmas, poindexter.”

“You don’t even celebrate Christmas,” Ford told him mildly.

“You kidding me? It’s the best time of the year for selling stuff! I’ve been celebrating it for _years_.”

Ford sighed. I giggled. “You know what this means, right honey?”

“Sure do. Means you don’t have to be scared anymore.”

“Well, that too,” I agreed. “But no, it means when your inheritance comes in, I’m coming to Vegas to help you do stupid, illegal, _stupid_ things.”

“I’m already regretting giving it to you,” Ford remarked as Stan dipped me back over the arm of the sofa and kissed me.

*

Horace reappeared while I putting the potatoes on to boil. He still looked tired—I could tell not by his face, but by the fact that I could see right through him—but his mood had improved. I was throwing the rolls into the oven when a shout of “Teegs! They’re after me!” came from the living room. I ran out in time to prevent Dave and Mabel (giggling hysterically) from adding anything more than foundation to Stan’s face. Ford _could_ have helped, but he claimed he was far too busy with the e-mail he was composing on his phone. I explained to the kids that I _seriously_ needed Stan’s help in the kitchen, so the makeover would have to wait. He was crap at chopping vegetables for salad, but he was very grateful for the rescue.

Not long after that, Soos and his family turned up at the front door. It was still snowing, but now that we were all here that just made it feel more like Christmas. Abuelita had made a pie, and Melody had brought in a beautiful tray of meats and cheeses from her job at the mall. All the kids descended on them with excited shrieks. Ford opened a nice bottle of scotch. Mabel and Dipper talked everyone’s ears off. Dave actually brought out his guitar and played some hokey holiday songs instead of his usual angry chords. Horace, who had a beautiful angelic voice, sang along. Nicky announced that we were _all_ playing Monopoly after dinner. This was met with good-natured groans by everyone but Stan, who was clearly already plotting how best to cheat his way to a win.

Our little dining room was barely big enough to hold everybody, but the too-young-to-drink crowd refused to get pushed out into the kitchen. It somebody got elbowed every time we needed pass a dish, but it was worth it to have the entire family together. Secretly, under the table, I wrapped my foot around Stan’s ankle. While Soos was telling a goofy story about attempting to repair some pipes in the Shack, Stan leaned in close to my ear. “Hey Teegs.”

“Yeah?” I asked back quietly.

“Having all these people around is a giant pain in the ass,” he informed me, not sounding remotely like he meant it.

I smiled, looking down all the happy faces at the overcrowded table. “Yeah, we have a pretty incredible family, don’t we.”

“Eh. It’s okay.” He shrugged and went for another bite of dressing.

I shook my head, smiling, and stabbed a cooked carrot from my own plate. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes,” I said emphatically. “You love _everyone here_.” I paused to enjoy the moment. “And so do I.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan admitted, resting a hand on my knee. “You got me. I do.”

I winked at him, and took another bite of carrot.


End file.
